I enquired with a few friends to know the chances of getting tickets to watch a match there. The response I got from most was not very encouraging, most said that I had to wait in long queues for hours and still might not get to watch a match; some said that I had to go the previous night and stand in the queue, and if I was lucky enough I will get to the centre court. But then I knew that “Luck” doesn’t pass me by as often as I would want it to. So, I dropped the plan. Well, almost.

On a Saturday afternoon, (27th June 2009 2:30 PM, to be precise), I felt this sudden urge to pay a visit to Wimbledon. I wanted to give my luck a chance. And I managed to persuade my housemates to accompany me. We reached there at around 4:00 PM, last game was at around 6:00 PM and there was an Andy Murray match happening at the centre court. I had a quick glance at the queue, and it was like an endless trail of snails heading towards the tunnel with no light at its end. And the sudden urge stroke back. As crazy as it may sound, we headed towards the end of the trail i.e. the start of the snail trail.

Notwithstanding the length of the queue, every time it moved a little, the hope of getting in grew a little. For every few yards we moved, I would count the steps and time the wait (with my stopwatch). I tried to calculate the approximate time it would take for us to get in, and it was not very encouraging. But I actually believed my gut, more than the metrics, which said we would get in. Every step towards the entrance built the excitement more and more.

After close to two hours of nervous wait, we finally got there. (I could hear the theme from the movie Gladiator in my ears as I walked in to Wimbledon, a moment of glory). From where we stood, we could hear the huge roar of applause for Andy. We just followed the roar, and it led us to the giant screen, where there were people all around cheering for their favourite player. All I could see was “no hope for centre court”. I wasn’t totally disheartened, since there was a match that Jamie Murray (Andy’s younger brother) was playing in Court 2. I thought we could at least watch the younger one play the game. I mean how different could they be, they are both Murrays after all. So we bought the tickets to Court 2.

While we were heading towards Court 2, we saw a couple of familiar players crossing our path. It took me a moment before I realised that they were Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza, the Indian Mixed doubles champions. It didn’t take us long to unanimously ditch the plan to Court 2 and follow the pair to Court 4. And there it was the snail trail again, smaller one though; I thought the opponents must be a well known pair, and to my surprise the trail was actually for Sania and Bhupathi. There were more than the few of us (fans) than I had imagined. As we entered the court we saw this huge crowd of supporters for the Indian Pair. There were people with the Indian Flags, screaming “Jitega Jitega India Jitega” (Literally translated “Victory victory India Victory”, a cheer mostly associated with Indian cricket) at the top of their voices. The referee had a hard time silencing the crowd, but the Indian champs seemed to love the homely treatment at Wimbledon. We joined the cheer all through the match and the champs won in straight sets. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

It is true that I wasn’t lucky enough to watch Andy play in the centre court at the Wimbledon. But a strawberry with cream after an exhilarating match from the Indian Duo, I would still consider myself lucky and check Wimbledon off the “10 things I want to do in London” list.

I closed my eyes and opened them again
Wishing it would all be over with no mental pain
But all in vain
I thought I should try again

Dropped the Plan

And saw the Clock

The minutes were moving no better than seconds
And this is something the team reckons
I thought I should attempt an escapade
But I knew the Restroom will be a stampede

Dropped the plan

Felt I should clear the mental block

I was trying to remember those four lines
And all I could think of were nursery rhymes

Dropped the Plan

And there he was and I felt like asking ‘Eh! What’s up Doc?’

But I look at him in awe
Convincing myself with Murphy’s Law
He HAD to ask me those four lines
Out they came like nursery rhymes

I guess he ‘Dropped the Plan’
Cos he left
It’s over
The Audit

I wrote thing more than 3 years ago…Just happened to read it again…Felt it was not too bad to post, so I did

After all its not such an unfamiliar name…:D

I am often accused by at least a few that I think that I am always right, and that I do not accept if I am wrong. Well my belief was quite the contrary. I believe that I do agree when I am wrong. In fact I feel that I agree much better than the ones that accuse me of not accepting. But since, this comment comes time and again, I wanted to sit back and thought maybe I am wrong, and I just carry this attitude that I cannot be wrong. But I wanted to understand why it would affect someone so much.

I think its only human to think what you are doing is right. But what should be understood is if I feel I am right, it doesn’t mean “you are wrong”! It only means that I strongly feel that I have reasons to believe what I said is right.

If someone were to provide me with adequate reasons against my belief, I would accept it. I have learnt many things that way. If someone has cared enough to understand my position and shown the flaw in my reasoning, I would be more than happy to agree…

If someone disagrees with me, I appreciate the opinion, but the opinion cannot be force fed on me. After all, I am as right as anyone else!

As one of my friend says…”I don’t have an attitude problem. I have an attitude, and you have a problem”

Apparently this is because they do not want to waste their time in creating new scenes. It kinda makes sense, process improvement wise. The objective is to create entertaining cartoons. But then creating a new one everytime is a risk. So we need to check what has worked in the past and repeat them. Sounds more like the classic rules followed from Quality Management.

But then aren’t we killing creativity in the name of process improvement?

And when you are racing, if any of the other gangs try to overtake you, you could just punch him or kick him or if you had any weapons like clubs or nunchakus you could just beat them up hard.

I really wish the roads were a game of Road Rash, except of course its not about the over taking part, its about how recklessly the rules of the road are disobeyed. Don’t you feel like bashing up the guy who crosses the yellow line trying to overtake the long waiting traffic, and then his loyal subjects and then some more of their followers, only to block the traffic on the other side and ensure that the roads are sufficiently jammed before the leader escapes through the narrowest of the gaps.

I once used to follow every single road rule laid or at least to the extent I was aware of, but I would always be singled out one in the mob. The most simple of the rules are never followed, you see a red signal, you stop, before the stop line, I mean how more simple can it get? Now tell me how many times have you done it? Even if you really wanted to, there is a high probability that you couldn’t, with the number of heavy vehicles misunderstanding the white stop line to be finish line of the F1 race, and let’s get real, you are no safety car for them to stop behind you. So what do you do? You jump the signal, and so does vehicles at least 10 rows behind you.

Why is it so hard for us to follow the rules? My job includes a role of an auditor, when we audit we basically look at compliance to some laid down standards or rules that the organization needs to follow. Are these rules perfect? Well certainly not, but considering the awareness of the situation and the standards/models we follow these are the best we have in hand, and we strongly believe in them. Coming to think of it, isn’t a strong belief in a set of practices/rules referred to as a religion.

And we all follow some religion, whether they have been classified as one or not. But the strong differentiator between following a set of rules and a religion is the belief or the faith. We do not ask for logics in the religion we follow, because they are supernatural and it’s the fear of the unknown, we believe the rules are right even if we think they can be otherwise. We dare not deviate from what has been followed as a practice, because it is the fear of the unknown.

But when the source of the rules are known, all the questions of logic come by. We cannot believe the humans , they are not supernatural, so any rules that they can create are just farce. And obviously there is no fear of such farce created by the known and hence we do not follow them.

All religions (at least the ones that are classified as one ) try to give us an overall gyan on how we should lead our life, or basically what can be considered right/wrong, and the supernatural that laid these are not sending us any updates as well. And the lack of clear interpretations of these rules to real life, has lead to us Humans interpreting them to our best understanding, the interpretation of the rules could be right/wrong, and they are as human as the rules set for the road or for an organization.

Then why not believe in them?

I entered the room and I was shocked to see what I saw. There were air conditioners and chairs just as I had imagined, but where was all the serenity that I had imagined. The Air conditioners were running alright but all I could feel was a heat wave. The windows were all wide open and there were people everywhere. I took a second glance to see if I entered the right place, and I saw 3 counters saying “Tatkaal Counter”, and I looked at the snake tails, there were 5 of them!

Now this was a trick, I had to pick the one that actually leads to the counter, but it was not easy to figure it out. Then I thought I will pick the one that is exactly in line with the counter, ironically none of them were…So without wasting my time in any further calculations I just picked one of them and waited.

I tilted my head to the left and I saw “Tatkaal Billing” and a couple of those counters. I enquired about them to the guy standing ahead of me in the queue, he said “After you complete document verification here, you need to pay the application fees there”. I said “What?? Are you Sure??” He looked at me smiling and said “Yup”.

It was getting more and more and suffocating with all the people around, and I I thought I was about to faint by the thought of waiting in endless queues. Suddenly there was commotion near the counter. people were calling out for the guards, and then I realized, a man there actually fainted. I looked at the folks around and saw that they were lot more equipped than I was. They had snacks and water bottles with them, while I was standing there with a copy of Outlook Magazine. It was like a picnic, only like the picnic was at hell.

Time was running out, the counters would close by 4:30 PM and I looked at my watch, it was 4:15 PM. I knew I wouldn’t make it that day, but I was a little worried about what’s next and I cribbed aloud, “My appointment was supposed to be 3:00 PM”. The guy ahead of me smiled and said “mine too, only that It was 3 days back”. I was relieved on one hand because that meant that I don’t have to get a new appointment but the thought of the queues still haunted me.

The counters were extended a little further for the day, and there was a slim hope of my application submission. I waited, I wanted to wait until they shut down their PC’s and kicked me out. There was also another worry, after all the efforts of reaching the counter you could be sent back on account of any changes required or insufficiency of evidence, I had brought all the evidences I could. But there is always this fear, when you see people running back from the counter crying!

After almost an hour of extension the counters finally closed, and I was asked to come on Monday. I wasn’t shocked, I was expecting it anyway, but it was still a disappointment after almost a whole day of waiting in queues.

(Monday)

I started the day much early and reached the Passport office at least an hour early. By now I knew the answers for all the questions I initially had, I knew where to go, what things to carry. In fact I had friends there who I made during the long queue waits. The counters open and we all run, literally run. Join the queue, I must say no matter how fast you run, there is always someone ahead of you. But it was much better than the earlier times, I had water, refreshments, no books, all docs in hand. Wait for the guy to turn up at the counter. If its your lucky day, he comes 5 minutes early, I always thought it was an impossibility in government offices, but it happened. And my queue started moving first and fast.

Within a half hour, it was my turn, I couldn’t believe it! And he just took a couple of minutes to complete the verification. All fine, and I get a Tatkaal Folder.

I ran to the billing queue, another half hour, voila everything’s done. Got the payment slip, reached office just a couple of hours late.

Mission Accomplished!

Got my Passport in the next 5 days, they promise 3 days, but for their usual promising standards, this was absolutely fair!

Well then it was a small lesson for me not to underestimate these government bodies, and then I googled for the Indian passport website and filled out the online registration form. This was much easier than filling out the form manually, most of the redundant information were copied automatically, and it was becoming easier than I thought. Once I completed the form and submitted for an appointment, there was a pop stating that the earliest available one was 2 weeks away. All my earlier calculations about receiving the passport had gone for a toss, there was pretty much nothing I could do about that but to apply for an earliest date and wait for the day to apply.

(Two Weeks Later)

The appointment was for 3:00 PM, as usual as a precaution I reached the place much in advance in order to avoid any last minute mishaps and similar preparations. By now I kinda knew the place around and I knew I had to go to the first floor for Tatkaal and I ran to the place but then I couldn’t find where the queue was. I was running around the place asking people for the Tatkaal counter for around 15-20 minutes, each of them showing different paths, but then I saw the same police man who stopped me the other day for not having the online form went ahead showed him my Online Form and asked him “Now where do I go?”. He calmly said “Downstairs”. I said “What?? Are you sure??”. He said “You don’t have a Tatkaal Seal on your form, get it and then go to second floor”. I was puzzled and relaxed at the same time, this was the time someone gave me some information on the future steps…

I went downstairs, again I was lost. All the queues were long, nothing seemed like a “Tatkaal premium serice please come here” kinda queue…then I noticed someone carrying an online form with a Tatkaal seal on it, so I went over and enquired him about the queue, he pointed me to the same old snake queue…I said “What?? Are you sure??”. He answered firmly “Yes, I am sure.”

Without a choice I go and stand in that long snake tail. I was pissed, this was a general queue for kinds of enquiry, and that includes the Tatkaal seal. The guy at the counter will arrange the forms and proof copies and staple them with a seal on top. That’s it. For this we have to wait in a queue that moves no better than a snail.

While waiting there was a person with a uniform that had a tag saying something like canteen, who came over to the guy just ahead of me in the queue and spoke something. I guessed that this guy must be someone working in the office canteen and can probably speed up the seal getting process for some bribe. After waiting in such a long queue for such a long time, its like an oasis in the Sahara. After a brief talk the guy ahead of me and the Canteen man left the queue and within minutes this guy was in the next stage queue. I got excited, I thought I could use the trick too. I waved at him to get my thing also done, he just walked past like he had no clue who I was waving at.

I was hoping that the guy will turn up from nowhere and do the same thing to me, but it was not to be. Somehow, the queue moved inch by inch and by now I was an hour away from my scheduled appointment and was worried if that could become an issue. I was worried if I had to go through another round of appointment which will push the dates further, I was praying that nothing of the sort happens.

And then suddenly I realized I was at the counter to get the seal done, it was a moment of euphoria, I didn’t think I could make it till there. But before I could show him the docs for the arranging, a girl barged in and gave her docs before me, she was nowhere from the queue, I got pissed for a moment, but when I saw her she was literally shivering and was just about to cry! I was shocked for a minute thinking there must be something seriously urgent for the girl and stepped back. The guy at the counter ignored her and asked me for the docs. She stepped in and said “Please sir I’ve got the photocopies, I am sorry sir please sir…” she kept on apologizing in a broken tamil and the guy absolutely ignored her. I didn’t say a word, standing at the counter from a long queue in a government office, selfless is not a word you can think of. I drew my docs and gave it to him. The girl came in again and started crying and apologized for her broken tamil and pleaded for him to arrange the docs for her. I was spellbound with the reply he gave her.

He said “You say you don’t know tamil, you say you are sorry, but you never give us water”.

Did you get the link? It took me a moment too, the girl was from Karnataka, that same day there was a huge protest on the Hogenakkal Issue and see the pain that people have to go through for no fault of their own!

I was shocked but I smiled, I was a little surprised with the link the man brought at the counter to not serve someone who had no direct link to the situation (that I knew of at least). In any case, it was a moment of euphoria for me…I had just gotten my seal for Tatkaal, I started running to the second floor, for the premium, peaceful and serene Tatkaal counter!