Hurried Versus Languid

 Why is everybody in a hurry? Where are they going? And, if they are actually going somewhere in life, can't it wait a few minutes?

These questions always arise between 9 am and 10 am in the morning, and between 4.30 and 5.30 pm each working day, in my mind. After that, they vanish, to come back again at the same time, to bother me.

Research is needed, maybe, to figure out if we would achieve anything more if we were 5 minutes ahead of normal/usual. Will that stop global warming, floods, war, general nastiness and dictators clinging to power in more countries than one?

Will it lead to us smiling instead of throwing a tantrum at home or workplace? 

Partly, it depends on your mode of transport too. If you have a comfortable seat on a bus or a commuter train, you may not care about traffic conditions, or delays of some kind. They would be minor distractions for you. But in the driver's seat, it may feel different. 

So, maybe learning to relax and take a deep breath, and not rush in where angels fear to tread would be a good approach. What do you think?

Of Flights and Other Diversions

This one if you have not guessed it already, is about diversionary tactics as applied to flights. I was sitting in an Indigo flight with some colleagues, headed from Nagpur to Delhi. We got a wee bit apprehensive when the pilot announced at take-off that there was dense fog in Delhi. After hovering around about 50 minutes above the dense fog, good sense prevailed. You don't burn fuel if you park yourself somewhere. Fortunately, we did not indulge in the car version of fuel-saving, switching the ignition off. We just landed in Jaipur, with a grand view of the unfogged landscape there.

Fortunately, some colleagues had bought Orange barfi at Nagpur, so we had something to chew on while we awaited communication from our masters at the ATC. The mood was one of a picnic, barring a few people who were either missing connecting flights or were being cursed by bosses. Eventually, the air was cleared over Delhi, but not before the lovely air hostesses had been harassed by hungry passengers into selling their entire stock of edibles (loosely used here) and then parted with limited amounts of complimentary snacks (why limited, no idea). Anyway, they handled the situation quite well.

The saga taught us that just like trains, if you are headed into foggy places, plan for a wasted day in and around the fog times. Delhi retains the title of Fog Capital of India.

A line from an old movie came to mind...Bambai se gai Dilli, Dilli se gayi Patna , phir bhi na mila sajna..

Fogged Out

Thus speaks the wiki on Fog-

Fog is a collection of liquid water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated locally (such as from a nearby body of water, like a lake or the ocean, or from nearby moist ground or marshes). Fog is distinguished from mist only by its density, as expressed in the resulting decrease in visibility: Fog reduces visibility to less than 1 km (5/8 statute mile), whereas mist reduces visibility to no less than 1 km . For aviation purposes in the UK, a visibility of less than 5 km but greater than 999 m is considered to be mist if the relative humidity is 70% or greater.

The fictional character in Jules Vernes' book 'Around the World in Eighty Days' was called Phileas Fogg, I don't have the foggiest idea of why anyone would want to have a name like Fogg, but then, I have encountered  (sur) names like Cabinetmaker in my life too. 

Anyway, the point of this post is to mention that I had a fog delay- not, as is the fashion, in the air, or on the airport, but just driving to work-on the road. That I am fogged out as a result goes without saying. But what is life without a bit of fog-or other kinds of excitement?