What Happens in Vegas has Happened Before

Last 2 weeks passed in a frenzy.  A colleague pulled out of a conference at the 11^th hour and I was asked to fill in. There was a slight problem. The conference was in Las Vegas and I did not have a US visa.

“Business Visas come quick. Give it a try.” I was asked. Mysteriously my visa got processed in 5 days.
Things cut so close that I received my passport with visa on Friday evening. This also meant that I did not have the luxury to book my flight tickets in advance. I returned from the US consulate in Amsterdam and placed a request with my office travel agent for the tickets. The only flight I got was for Sunday morning at 8 am. It was Delta Airlines via Detroit. Not a very convenient timing. I remained awake on Saturday night and took a taxi from my home to Schiphol Airport at 4 am.

It all went smooth from there and I boarded the flight at 7:30 am. I could not realize when I slipped into slumber while the plane was still taxiing. I was half asleep and had some awareness that the flight was taking off.

Half sleep and half awake; I felt that the plane was flying in a strange manner. It was taking sharp turns; it would nose dive in a moment and shoot up the other. Suddenly I realized that the flight almost brushed past a cliff. The plane was flying in a reddish mountainous terrain at dangerously low heights. I could see a curvaceous river meandering below.  “A passenger plane doesn’t fly this way. Something is seriously wrong!” In a state of panic I looked around for clue. I was surprised to see some colleagues from my office though I was sure that I boarded the flight alone. Then I realized that there were more belts strapped on my body than the normal flight seat belt. To my horror, I realized that there was no base below my feet. My shoes were dangling above the clouds in the sky.
Strangely, I was not hurt. The flight was able to manoeuvre without hitting the mountains.

“This is definitely dream.” I told myself. I struggle to open my eyes but not able to move. It was as if I was paralyzed. With struggle, I shake off my slumber and open my eyes. It was dream indeed. Tiredness from the day took its toll. I was dreaming in a tired exhausted state. The flight was fully air borne by this time flying at a height of 30000 feet.

 I found Delta Airlines hospitality to be good. They served very generous portion of food. Even the water bottles they served was of half litre size. Lots of drinks, snacks and ice creams every now and then.

I arrived in Las Vegas and checked in MGM Grand Hotel and Resorts. That was the venue for the conference. It was all surreal. Next 4 days passed quickly. The schedule for the conference used to be pretty tight. We would have our breakfast from 6:30 am and then get consumed in the proceedings for the day. After attending the keynote speeches from the host company; we would man our booth in the exhibition area, collecting leads from prospective clients who would visit our booth and enquire about our offerings.

On the last day of the conference things wrapped up by 12:00 noon and we got free early. People had been departing since morning. I and a few of my colleagues had flight for next day morning so we wanted to see around the city. Till now we had just got glimpses of the glittery city in the night. We had some short walks on the famous strip at night passing by those iconic hotels and casinos and brushing against some crazy people on the street.

“Shall we visit the Grand Canyon?” A colleague from India was very enthusiastic in particular. My knowledge of American geography is not very good. I still do not remember which cities are on the east coast and which ones are on the west coast. I had no clue that the Grand Canyon is nearby.

We went to the hotel information desk to enquire about day trips to the Grand Canyon.
“All the road trips to Grand Canyon start at 6 am in the morning. It is a 14 hours return trip. You can only get helicopter trip now.” The lady at the desk explained.

“How much does it cost?”

“There are multiple tour companies that cover the Canyon. The cheapest one would be 400 Dollars.”

“No way am I going to spend that money.” I made a resolve internally.

My other two colleagues seemed to be excited about the trip even after hearing the price.

“Let’s go out to the strip and enquire at some tourist offices on the street. Everything in this hotel is pricey.” One of the colleagues suggested.
We went out and found an agency booking the helicopter trips.

“You are late! Let me still call up all my contacts to find out if there is any possibility.” An energetic middle aged lady talked with gusto.

“I will not go; you two please carry on.” I suggested my friends.

The lady at the desk was making calls frenetically. I observed her. She had got a lots of Botox on her face and lips and had applied heavy makeup.

“There is only one helicopter left. It has 3 seats available and they will give out those seats to a group of 3 passengers.” The lady announced.

To give my friends a company I conceded.
I was not very excited though. We had to wait for a couple of hours at our hotel and a cab would come and collect us from the reception and would take us to the helicopter base.controls

The cab came and we reached the helicopter base. The helicopter could take 6 passengers apart from the pilot.

The pilot and the crew gave us some safety instructions before the flight. We were asked to follow the command of the pilot diligently and abide by all the rules.
“You cannot touch any of the controls on the dashboard at the front. Only the pilot has authority to touch them.” The instructor spoke in a stern voice.
We were clubbed with a group of 3 people from Saudi Arabia. The Pilot had to decide who would sit where.

“People from Saudi Arabia; please take the back seats.” The pilot announced. I got the front corner seat by the window.

The helicopter took off and moved steadily towards the Grand Canyon. In the beginning it flew over plane terrain. Slowly the helicopter entered the mountainous zone. The pilot would take sharp turns along curves to give us the best view of the canyon. At one juncture he almost took a nose dive to show us the Hoover dam below.
I gazed below and saw my legs dangling in air. The bottom of the helicopter was made of glass and I could see the sky underneath. It was déjà vu! I looked up to realize that I have more straps on my body than the normal airplane seat belts.
I hurriedly switched the video mode on my camera and took amateur video of the flight. The scenes from dream seemed to be replaying. This time I was wide awake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSnRTr0M5O4

I also want Azadi

Last few days India had been a divided nation over sedition charges on some JNU students. All for shouting a slogan; “Bharat tere tukde honge; insallah; insallah”. I fail to understand by what yardstick this measures up to sedition and anti-nationalism. Probably all poor JNU Students have said is that if God willing; India will be broken into many pieces. That simply implies that our destiny is in hands of God. If God is willing; India will be broken. If God is not willing; India will remain united. If God is willing; Pakistan will conquer India; if God is not willing; Pakistan will get down to its knees and plead to India to be accepted back in the family. If God is willing; China would surround and choke India from all sides. If God is not willing; China will come to India with a begging bowl to seek investment in its fast declining economy. God reigns supreme. That is all the poor guys have said.

I remember our music teacher taught us a song in the middle schools:

Teri hai jameen; tera aasman
Tu bada meharbaan tu bakhsish kar
……………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………….
Tu chahe to hame rakhe; tu chahe to hamme mare
Tere aage jhuka ke sar; khade hain aaj ham saare

This in essence meant the same thing.
Oh God; if you wish; you keep us alive; If you wish; you kill us.
We all are standing with bowed head in front of you.
No one was charged with sedition then. This song is still played freely.

You may say that I am playing with words. Umar Khalid and his associates actually want to see India broken in to pieces and are letting the God take a final call on the decision.

If you think so; you are raising the stature of Umar Khalid to almost Jesus Christ.

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

And then there is Kanhaiya Kumar. He perhaps did not speak much but got thrashed blue and black. I fail to understand the shock people are expressing over Kanhaiya’s fate. All the Kashmir Separatist lobby guys managed to get into secret hide outs and surrender at mid night and are taken to undisclosed destinations. Poor Kanhaiya had no place to hide. He was beaten in police custody; in the court; on the street. Three lawyers came out in front of camera valiantly and gave graphical details of how they beat him and their plans to go into the jail and beat him again.
Please remember, Kanhaiya is Bihari. Bihar has no negotiation power. China or Pakistan does not lure it to drift away from India and join their side. Bihar has got junk status. Bihar does not supply water or electricity to Delhi. Alas, Modiji’s party also lost it badly in the state elections in spite of promising vulgar investment packages. Kanhaiya is also Hindu. Those thug lawyers or administration have nothing to be scared about Kanhaiya. Kanhaiya can be made an example for other detractors. A Kashmiri; a North East guy; a muslim guy incites fear of repercussions. Those lawyers would not have come on camera if they would have hit a Kashmiri muslim boy.

Do not shed tears for Kanhaiya either. He is perhaps more like the ones prosecuting him than you and me. I remember in 1990 Lalu Yadav became chief minister of Bihar. Most of us had not heard about him before. We were in high school. Till that time, we boys had always seen successive Congress Chief Minister taking turn.

One of our classmates father recounted Lalu’s political background from Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement and student agitation days. During emergency period in 1975; student agitation started in Patna under guidance of JP. My friend’s father was journalist in a local newspaper then,

The students would gather at Dak Bangla crossing to register their protest. Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ravishankar Prasad, Sushil Kumar Modi et. al. used to be students’ leaders.
The moment police would come charging with their batons; Lalu would spring into action. While most of the others would recede; Lalu would ensure to take up the first blow. He would hog the newspaper front page due to his constant bleading head. Eventually Lalu took lead in student politics over Nitish, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Sushil Modi by virtue of getting beaten up first. A lead that he maintains till this date.

Lalu became renowned politician by getting thrashed. Once he came into power; his arrogance and tyranny superseded his predecessors. Arvind Kejrival gained prominence by his famous dharnas and forced evictions by police. When he came to power, the same person now gets his opponents kicked out including the poor 3 BJP MLAs in Delhi Assembly and old time collaborators Yogendra Yadav and Bhushan and son.

It would be premature to predict that our Kanhaiya would also groom in to a national leader sometime soon. I would not be surprised if he follows the same path.

Everybody is shouting slogans for Azadi. Witnessing the rampage of the Patels in Gujrat and now the Jats in Haryana; I also want to shout out my heart.

Mujhe chahiye pichadi jatiwad se aazadi!(I want freedom from backward caste attitude).