End of Bangalore Days

Around 10 pm on 14th of Jan 2006, I and Savita head to the railway station for our trip to Chennai. And as is obvious by now to you – I ended up having to pay for the cab.
(If I ever find the guy that invented the concept of “Chivalry” – I’m going to KILL HIM!!!).

As per Pak’s plans, we were supposed to continue the rest of the knowledge transition – another 15 days – at Chennai. His reasoning was, this would give Savita a chance to visit Chennai, as well as set up your machine and the software you’d need to get going.

Let me tell you this - I had tried every trick in the book to try and stay back at Bangalore. I mean, why wouldn’t I? I had a luxurious room at my command, I was in Babe heaven, and I was siphoning off Rs. 200/- every day via my little “autorikshaw fraud” scheme!
A couple of things I tried were, volunteering to stay back at Bangalore to aid Savita, as she was a “girl” and probably wasn’t very comfortable with having to stay at an alien place. When that didn’t work, I tried painting a very gory picture of Chennai to Savita –saying stuff like – “Its freaking hot there … You’ll end up all black by the time you come back … Heck – what will happen to your value in the marriage market if you end up all dark?”
You know – the works. I did convinced Savita that Chennai was a place she better stay away from! But at the end of the day, Pak - who was our boss – had the last word in the whole deal. And sadly, he didn’t buy into the idea!

Anyways, back to the story. So - it’s freezing cold on the morning of 15th when I land in Chennai. Me and Savita get into a cab – which by the way, is an Ambassador that I’m pretty sure is older than me – and head to our respective homes. To be more precise, the itinerary was that I’d drop her off at her guest house and then head over to my house.

Her guest house turned out to be some sort of a shady spot. I swear … The second I saw the place - I kind of had the feeling that “These guys probably rent rooms by the hour and not by the day!”
But, I didn’t raise this concern of mine with her. For all you know, I was just being hypercritical - It was 5 am in the morning, and every hotel (except the 5 star ones ofcourse) would have looked shady – to me atleast - at that time.
And I was also aware that in the event of me raising my concerns - I’d end up having to search for an alternate hotel for her, or worst come worst case – letting her stay at my place for a couple of days till Diapro gave her a better place!
I definitely didn’t care that much about her to have to take so much of pain!

At the time of leaving, she says – “Hey Sharath … My phone is on roaming, if you don’t mind – can I use your spare SIM? I’ll pay for whatever I use.”

If you’re wondering what’s the deal with me carrying multiple SIM cards – I use two different SIM cards - One for sending SMS and the other for making calls. The reason is pretty simple – both the SIM cards gave me good rates for the function I was using them for!

I was sure I’d not get a penny out of her. So, I gave her my SMS walla SIM. That particular one did not have STD facility activated on it, and SMS’ing was free anyways. So, I was sure she couldn’t loot me – atleast not much anyways!
Sly me eh!!!
(Remind me to pat myself on the back)

All that done, I head over to my house. Once I am there, I get the next jolt. The Cab guy charged me Rs. 500 /- for the trip? It was company money, and ideally I shouldn’t have had any issues with him trying to loot me, but instincts suddenly kicked in – and I lashed out at him for trying to cheat me. I was like “Maybe you should hold a knife and ask me for the same. I’d gladly hand over the cash. But, other than that – I don’t think you’re getting anything more than 300 from me!”

Finally, I ended up paying him 400 bucks. And this was partly because the cabbie started swearing and cussing, and the neighbors’ lights started coming on thanks to all this hungama!

What a wonderful way to start my day eh!!!