Maa-Lay-Rice-Yaaa!

I am down with malaria. Apparently female anopheles mosquitoes have this huge crush on me. I have been smitten by them twice in less than six months. My mom is in Boston and is weeping her heart out. Don’t worry ma, will get well soon. The disease got me an opportunity to go back home and devour some home-food. Used it as a bait to get me a flight ticket( for a change, I didn’t incur my fathers’ wrath when I informed him about my travel plans) . My dad has a huge bias when it comes to his son flying. He always insists that I travel only by Indian railways. This got me thinking and I wanted to find out the opportunity costs when I fly.

A one way flight ticket to Chennai (If booked a month in advance) would set back my dad’s account by 2400 INR. A train ticket to Chennai(3rd AC) will cost him 1350 INR( assuming Mamta Didi was kind enough not to increase it since the last time I travelled by railways). I stay 5 minutes away from the airport and hence traveling cost is nil. I get to reach home within the 3 hrs and hence I end up saving close to 200 INR on food and other expenditure if I had to spend the entire day in Mumbai. The railway-station is quite a distance form my residence and it will cost me close to 100 INR to get to it. Once on it(the train), I usually end up spending anywhere between 250-350 INR on food/water/magazine. The journey from the station to my house works to around 110 INR. To sum it up-

One way trip to Chennai by flight-2400/- INR
One way trip to Chennai by rail -1350+200+300+100=1950/- INR

The difference of 400 is negligible when compared to the extra day I get to spend with my parents. Hope my dad realizes this!

We, the people

Was doing some random analysis today-

Searched for the following and wanted to know the number of hits Google could match

India+Poverty- 16,500,000

India+unemployment - 11,900,000

India+Corruption- 9,670,000

India+Illiteracy- 671,000

Moral of the story- Though not illiterate we still remain poor, corrupt and unemployed.

Why Agassi Why??

Agassi, the great, admits to taking crystal meth( a recreational drug) in his yet to be released auto-biography titled "OPEN". Have always been a big fan of him and it does pain me to hear a revelation as shocking as this. The worst part is, i hear a new, image tarnishing story every other day. Last week it was the meth, this week it's a combination of his fake hairdo+tanking a match to avoid Boris Becker in the 1996 edition of the Australian open.

At this juncture, i must say that my reverence towards him remains unchanged. He was and still remains as one of the best athlete, the sport has ever seen. Guess its his way of letting it out. Must have been tough on him to conceal it all these years and even more to come out in the open now. For all those "See- i told you he was a bad guy" ass-@#$%^ out there, do you guys have any idea the amount of work he has does to promote the sport and help the underprivileged??..this article does justice to what he does- http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3072006&page=1.

I am not here to justify his actions, no one can. I just hope the ATP doesn't make an issue out of this.