I walked into the business class lounge in Kolkata airport at 1:30 am and as I was checking in, I chuckled at something. After settling down and grabbing a glass of wine, I went back to take a picture of what I had smiled at. There was nobody at the desk. The lounge was pretty empty. My flight – at around 4AM was the only flight left.

I was taking a couple of shots when the young guy who checked me in came running..

“Kuchh chaahiye kya, saar?” (Do you need something, sir?)
“Nahi. Bas yunhi photo khnich raha tha. Aur hna – yehan pe ‘Ask FOR your Wifi password’ likhna chaahiye tha” (No. I Was just taking random pictures. Oh! BTW, I noticed something. This should read Ask “FOR” your Wifi password)

The totally hapless guy looked at the sign, looked at me, looked at the sign again and then finally looked at me again and said “Hamara yehan to aisa-hi chalta hai saar” (Here, sir, this is how it goes). I am sure he gathered that I was not from around here.

And then immediately to divert my attention, he asked “Kuch khaayenga piyenge kya saar? Sab aapke liye free hai”. (Would you like to eat or drink something, sir? For you, everything is free).

That was the second time I chuckled at the checkin desk in five minutes 🙂

Smirn On and Smirn Off.
And he insisted on pronouncing it “Simirn” !!

FB is asking me to tag my friends among the pigs that ran alongside me yesterday!!

Before going to bed, I was catching up with the two daughters. Nikita, of course, wanted to chat for a long time and get all the details of my day. She is fairly curious that way – especially if that can distract her from all the homework and chores her mom has given her 🙂

When I had just come to the point of “I went to have foochkas”, she interrupted me…

“What is a foochka?” Before I could try to explain, she remembered something and continued…

“Oh! Isn’t that the thing where you poke a hole and have with really yucky water?”

And for good measure, added.. “No offense”

🙂

As it is my mom is completely oblivious of all the advances in phone technology. She does not even look up the address book to call somebody. She has no idea how to increase the volume while on a call. The only thing she has been trained to do is press the buttons (stemming from her land line days) and wait for the other person.

Even that, looking at her phone, how she does it, I do not know. Looking at her keypad, I can only conclude that she has never attempted to make an outbound call!! And she has had this phone for at least a couple of years!!