Blog Date (Nov 5, 2007)
I am back home and now trying to catch up with work. I have a few of the items that some of you have requested for. I will be slowly unpacking & contacting you to hand them over. In addition Sangita sends some gifts for all.

Outside all this I want to organize a small get-together and talk about my trip. I need to get a place and also I need to coordinate with my mom for the snacks part.

I am thinking about having a nominal donation to cover some of the expenses. If any of you are interested let me know, depending on the head count I will go forward with this. If all of you love Sangita more, then we can organize this when she returns. In general she is better about planning events.

Trip Details
In a few words, Murphy's Law strikes again.

Oct 20/31 there was a city wide politically motivated stoppage of work. Nov-1 Sangita and I went on our last minute shopping/errands spree. It was Sangita's birthday and we ended up at her relative's place for a mini family get-together.

When we got home we started packing the rest of the stuff in and we basically did not sleep, instead we just took some rest and I left for the airport alone around 4 AM. The future of the day was predicted by a cat that crossed the path of my taxi on the way to the airport.

I arrived with my 2 heavy suitcases and the broken down Sony Vaio laptop bag. I was greeted at the Air India counter with a nice staple Calcutta NO, basically no flights to Bangkok (BKK) today (by now I was used to this but I still had to panic). Normally a missed flight or anything does not panic me in the USA (prior experience), but this time I was thinking if crying and showing a gentler side of me would help or not (don't worry I did not go that route).

Instead of assisting me the folks berated me for not catching the 6AM Thai Airlines flight. By now I was totally disgusted with India and Calcutta, I decided to pull out my trump card, the American green (credit card not cash). I felt that some evil force was lurking around my every corner begging to get a sneak peek at my wallet, and that one sighting would make it go away.