Windmills

My phone rang. Feras, my hermano, called. After brief warm greetings he asked me, "We are planning to have ACE Conference in the beginning of July. I was thinking of the Chair for it. Would you consider my invitation to lead the conference?"

Lead the ACE Conference ... That is to engage with 70+ ACE interns from 30+ countries, to be an ambassador of one's own country and be united in diversity, to network with TCS colleagues and understand one's place in the corporate world we are in, and of course to indulge into peculiarities of the magical Indian culture. Great opportunity! Of course, I said Yes! to Feras and the ideas of the event jumped into my head.

This conversation happened in the end of April 2011. Two weeks after we agreed to meet with Feras in Trivandrum, Kerala. We both were invited to Leadership Development Institute in Trivandrum to deliver a session on Culture and cultural difference. Business and communication overseas. as a part of a training program for business development/relations managers of TCS. So our weekend agenda was full: session delivery and conceptualising the ACE conference.

However, God likes playing jokes on me as I can see. On May 6th lunchtime I received a call about cancelling my evening flight to Trivandrum because Air India crew were on strike. Nobody knew when it would finish, and nobody knew when they would start operating the flights.

- Ok, could you please find me another flight? I asked casually.

- Not possible, madam. All flights are booked.

- Well, if not Air India, then another airline. There are plenty of them, I repeated, still casually.

- Not possible, madam. All tickets are sold. We don't have any tickets available to Trivandrum, the same monotonous voice replied.

- Ok, are there any tickets from any other place but Chennai to Tricandrum today? I have an urgent meeting this evening and I have to be in Trivandrum. I stopped being casual and tried to show the seriousness of my situation.

- No madam, I repeat, we don't have any tickets to Trivandrum. Neither from Hyderabad or Madurai or from anywhere else.

Call dropped. I looked at the blank screen of my phone trying to understand how I was going to get to Trivandrum. The session was scheduled for the evening, and the next day we were supposed to build the conference agenda with Feras. Well, I said to myself, one way or another, I gotta be there. I went upstairs to my cabin and searched for available flight tickets on the same day, May 6th 2011. The agent was a trustworthy source: there were no tickets at any time on Friday, All the next days tickets' statuses blinked at me winking, "Hey, nobody has bought me yet. Take me, I am yours!" I swore in French and kept on searching for tickets. Then I called Feras but he was already on the plane from Mumbai to Trivandrum. Then I called the coordinator of the training program to inform him about the current situation. We both did not know what to do.

Then I said that I could take a bus and arrive the next day. If the session could be shifted to Saturday noon, I would make it.

- Assel, are you sure you want to come by bus?

- Yes, absolutely.

- Maybe Feras can deliver the session on his own?, the coordinator asked cautiously.

- No worries. Let me book bus tickets online.

Seriously, what's the problem, I thought. It would not be my first time of travelling by bus alone in India. Ok, it's not comfortable at all and more time consuming in comparison with the airplane, but it was an important weekend.

So I went online to book bus tickets. Fail. Then I called Chennai bus stand to book directly from them. The person I spoke too bombarded me with his super proficient Tamil and I could not even utter a word. I called for help from our HR and thankfully she explained to him what I needed. The man asked me to arrive at 7pm to the main bus stand and call him again, he promised me he would get a one way ticket for me.

I called back to Trivandrum office and asked of changing the session for Sat noon. Reassured, I would be there by morning, I left the office and headed to the bus station of Chennai at 5pm. So here is a bit of background information: if you happen to live in Chennai, or to be precise, to work and live in Chennai suburbs like me, you estimate that to get anywhere in the city takes around 1,5- 2 hours. The roads are packed and air pollution blocks every cell on your skin. So here was I on an AC bus hoping to reach the bus stand by 7pm. Luckily, my friend called from Canada and I had to fight on the bus for the place to stand, take care of my bags and talk to my friend. Unforgettable bus battle that ended win-win for me and people around :)

7pm. Asian looking girl in a skirt alone at the evening hour at Chennai bus stand. Quite dangerous, they say. I did not care. I spent 30 mins in searching for a bus ticket to Tirvandrum, damn it, and there were no tickets. Not to Coimbatore, not to Madurai, not to Cochin - nowhere. Good that I knew major cities in Tamil Nadu state. Bad that this knowledge was still unused. Moreover, nobody spoke plain English at the "travel agencies" as they call it and I almost lost hope to find somebody to help me. Then somebody grabbed my hand. It was a tiny guy who asked me, Kerala, Kerala? I said, Yes, Kerala, but Trivandrum in Kerala. Let's go, let's go, and he went straight.

We came to a small airless room where two big guys were counting money. They asked me, Where are you going, madam? Trivandrum. Do you have a spare ticket? We don't have buses to Trivandrum. But you can go to Nagerkoil and from there take another bus to Trivandrum. It's only 80 km far from there. Ok, fine. How much is the ticket?

The bus was supposed to leave in half an hour, at 8pm. Knowing Indian punctuality I relaxed: no need to hurry and worry, the bus would be on time.

On time happened three hours later. Passengers who were going by the same bus were shouting at the guy who sold us tickets, and I was shouting too. I found out that he ripped me off selling me three times more expensive than the actual price.

I crawled onto the bus and immediately turned off. I was so exhausted waiting for the bus in a dusty humid station surrounded by thousand looks of hungry men.

About half an hour later I was woken up by some strange noise. I noticed that all men left the bus in a hurry and only 3 women including me remained in the bus. I looked at the driver's seat but there was nobody, and the bus was still moving. Hallucinations? No, reality. The bus kept on moving and then it bended right! Oh God, I thought we would crash! I slowly got up, took my orange backpack and came out.

- What happened? my voice was trembling.

- No problem, madam. Five minutes, a tiny voice replied.

Ok, here is a rule: when you hear No problem, madam then it means there is a serious problem.

- Why are we not going?

- No problem, madam. The engine is broken.

- How bad is it?

- No problem. Five minutes.

Still could not believe in what happened, I looked around. It was a complete darkness, we were in the middle of nowhere, the passengers were looking at each other. Nice start, I thought. Then I saw a man taking his bag from the bus and rushing towards a car.

- Hey, wait, excuse me, where are you going? I asked him.

- I found a cab, I am leaving.

- Can I go with you?

- Yeaaah, sure thing. He looked at me as if I was insane.

So here I was in the small car with three unknown Tamil men going somewhere to the south of India. I had no information of who they are, which direction we would take and most importantly, when we would arrive. Perfect combination!

I called Feras and to my colleagues to Trivandrum explaining what has happened. They were terrified. They asked me if I trusted the men, and I said I knew nothing about them. But my companions surprised me: they asked me where I was going and why, and then they called their wives and family members to search for a flight for me to Trivandrum. It was almost 1am when we finished online conference call with many people involved solving one person's question.

Hopeless and emotionally exhausted, I fell asleep. Somewhere deep inside I had a big trust to these three men and I had a vision that everything would be alright.

6 hours later one of the men woke me up and called for breakfast. We stopped at Cafe Coffee Day and had a morning capuccino with samosa ( spicy vegetable pastry ). We were about to reach Madurai and then Trichi where one of the men would stay. We agreed that the taxi driver would reach Nagerkoil first and then he would bring me to Trivandrum. We have discussed all the financial questions of this journey and seemed everyone was satisfied with conclusions.

The road from Madurai to the south of Tamil Nadu is picturesque. Friends, if you are big nature lovers this is one of the fantastic roads to take. I have no idea Tamil Nadu is rich of green hills and strong winds. That is why on the very south of the state close to Kerala state border there are plenty of windmills at a distance of 15-20km. One of the men in the car happened to live in the Middle East, so he understood me perfectly - an expat in India.

By 10-11 am we have reached Trichi and a former helpful expat has wished me good luck in delivering the session on time.

Then we moved to Nagerkoil to drop another man. By midday-lunchtime I said Bye to him too, and breathed in happily anticipating a successful end of my endless journey. So we moved north from Nagerkoil and I was enjoying the green scenery of south Kerala. Less than an hour later we stopped.

- What happened? I was totally sure something has happened.

- Police, police. Stop, stop. The cab driver did not possess a good command of English.

- Why police?

- Not register. Car new. Not register.

Oh God! So the police stopped us 40km before Trivandrum and the driver had to pay the fine. I understood that if I stayed it would be another Indian novella, so I paid the driver for the journey and went hunting for any vehicle. The driver, however, asked me to pay more "just because he has to pay the fine I had to pay some part of the fine!" Upset, he looked for another way to get money from me and found me a rickshaw, and then asked money again. The rickshaw driver gave his price for 40km ride: 800 Rs (~ 16USD)

- You must be kidding me, I said, 800 Rs I would pay from Chennai to Hyderabad. But not for 40km distance. Bye.

I walked a few minutes and caught a local bus.

- Excuse me, are you going to Trivandrum?

- Yes, madam.

- How long does it take?

- One hour.

- How much is the ticket?

- 25 Rs ( ~50 US cents)

Perfect!

I reached the Trivandrum office at 2.30 pm. 17, 5 hours took me to reach Trivandrum to a) engage with TCS business managers in a lively discussion of how culture impacts the business nowadays, and b) dream with Feras about the July Maximum event for all our stakeholders.

Friends recommended me to blog about this time consuming and incredible independent trip. Some people asked if I was not afraid to take the risks I'd taken.

Honestly, I did not care if I should be scared or not. I knew only one thing: I have to take a decision in those situations very fast. Time is time, and I would not like to lose it. Finally, there will be amazing stories to tell to my grandchildren :)

... next blog post is about actual ACE conference...