Blogging from Chennai airport ...

My wife's sisters' kids (does that make them my niece and nephew ?)


Automatic Massage Chair


Very cool. Chennai airport is wireless enabled with free internet connectivity. So that even a person like me who has endless computer trouble can turn on the wireless on my laptop, pick the wireless option (there are multiple networks!) and bingo, I'm on. Now if I I hadn't been stupid enough to pack the power cord in my main luggage I'd be a happy man...

We did a quick weekend trip to Chennai. It had a lot of small bloggable bits.
-- Here are two of the latest Chennai innovations. There were billboards for Sarees with a built-in pocket. For putting cellphones, wallets etc. Quite strange-looking but hey, what do I know about sarees.

{{Continuing blogging from Bangalore}}

--The other interesting thing I saw at my sister-in-laws place. It was a new type of electric mosquito swatter. It is shaped like a small tennis racquet or a badminton racquet. The strings of the racquet are made of metal and are electrified, running off batteries. There are a couple of layers of strings, presumably to make it more safe, but you can get a shock from touching the strings. Anyway, if you swat a mosquito with this thing, the mosquito's body seems to create a short circuit and its gets electrocuted with a sharp cracking noise. It seems to work better than a mechanical flyswatter, its easier to swat a mosquito using this thing. Perhaps there is some 'sucking' effect that sweeps the mosquito into the net or something. Its quite a cool thing to see in action.

--We went and returned to Chennai by Air Deccan. There's a lot that can be written (and no doubt has already been written) about Air Deccan and the Indian aviation industry. Here's just a few tidbits. On the way out the flight was delayed by 5 hours and on the way back by 2.5 hours. Air Deccan has set up a reasonably working system of SMSing delays to you so you know how late the flight is and can plan accordingly (Air Deccan has become so legendary with delays and cancellations that its a question of how late the flight is, not if the flight is late).
On the way out, the ticket cost was quoted as Rs 2/- , with taxes, and all kinds of surcharges bringing the total flight cost up to 1300/- odd. Still a pretty good deal. On the way out the airplane was pretty bizarre. The seats could not recline at all. On the seat handles, on some seats the plastic covers on top of the metal were coming off *and they had actually been stuck back on with sticking tape*. It was an absolutely bizarre sight. Air Deccan is indeed the bus of the skies. Nevertheless I think its a really cool airline for what its managed to achieve and how it takes a, shall we say, pragmatic approach to customer service, and gets away with it. The only question is whether they are taking a similar 'sticking tape' approach to safety. I have been expecting for a while to hear bad news on that front, but other than a very rough landing in which people were actually quite badly hurt, there have not been any tragedies. So perhaps they are being good about safety.
-- At Chennai airport there was of course the WiFi that I talked about earlier. And at one place there was a mechanical massager chair service at 50/- for 5 minutes. Quite a strange sight.
-- I normally don't enjoy Chennai but this time I had a pretty good experience. The weather was cool and breezy and after chilly Bangalore, a nice change. The city seems to have spruced up a bit, it was generally quite clean and some places, especially on the road to the airport were positively fancy. The auto drivers did not seem as rude and uncouth as usual. We happened to walk through some of the residential areas, and a couple of them were gorgeous. Quiet, wide clean roads, and nice houses. Would love to live there. Some of the older homes from British days were still there in some areas and I love that architecture. Even the modern apartments and buildings were occasionally not the usual eyesores. The police headquarters building on the beach is pretty cool.