After checking our baggage thru till Zurich,it was a big relief.
Now,we were free.
All of us underwent security check and then settled down in departure lounge for our mumbai flight.the kids took out their ipods,some got busy with cell game,I bought coffee as the waiting began. After a long wait and much delayed,the Jet-konnect flight was announced,its departure delayed by 30 mins.
We were pleasantly surprised on entering the craft-we have been issued seats in first class-much wider,more comfortable seats-kids just loved it.
Since it was jet konnect,no dinner was offered-for which we were fully prepared - kadai ki pooris,alu ki sooki sabji were offered and readily lapped up by kids and others- we enjoyed this mid air midnight meal.
As time went by, Anxiety levels were raised,we were running 1 hour behind schedule when craft touched down at Mumbai airport.We rushed in the airport for hopping onto the international coach.A que was being formed for boarding the coach and we were asked to fill up immigration documents.The passports were distributed amongst the group members for filling up the details and all of it came back to me.After boarding the coach,I decided to check all passports were indeed in my bag.To my horror, I discovered that one passport is missing from my bag - I searched inside the bus,did not find it, than ran inside the terminus to search for the same,but in vain.It looked like one of us cannot undertake the journey because the passport was missing.The coach was getting late,I had to come back and as a last resort,searched my bag carefully in the dim lights of the coach-the missing passport was boxed inside another one-We all heaved a sigh of relief.
Posted in Family, Travel.
Tagged with flight, jet konnect, mumbai, passport, switzerland.
By sanjay laddha
– April 10, 2010
It was a usual kolkata weekday evening,dusk falling on another mid september 2009 day-yet it was unusual for 9 of us-who could not control their excitment of flying off to the most beautiful land man has ever seen.I with mine and my elder brothers family were dashing off to our first switzerland trip. it was a motley family group-from my strapping young daughter of 9 years to my father of 72 years- and all of us in between.it was a heady feeling-of ultimately flying off to a destination which i have heard so much of-
We left our ballygunge home at 1830hours,a tad late than planned,due to sudden disappreance of bhabhiji’s sandals-reaching kolkata netaji international airport at 1930 hours.we were met by the Jet airport manager on arriving at the airport-who ensured everything went off smoothly-we were issued our kolkata bombay,bombay london,london zurich boarding passes at jet kolkata check in counter itself.it was such a big relief to have all travel legs docs with us and saving on precious time later on…
Posted in Family, Travel.
Tagged with switzerland, trip.
By sanjay laddha
– April 4, 2010
All of us have kids as an integral part of our lives-sons,daughters,niece,nephew,grandchildren, neighbours etc..For entertainment-Some would love TV,some playing and a small part reading.They would have their own distinct choice for food and dress.They will have their own set of friends.
These children have a world of their own.
And they would like to live in that.
If we want to connect with these kids,we need to come out of our shells,our current thinking, and start understanding their mental makeup.
Why does a kid behave like they do?
Maybe,we need to undergo a dramatic transformation after all these years of living with a set of attitudes and behaviour patterns.
Maybe,our thought process have been fixed in so many years and now we are not able to see and understand how these kids are behaving.
A paradigm shift needs to take place in our thoughts and actions- to make us better understand the current genre of kids.
We needs to understand that these kids have been born and bought up in a vastly different environment than ours- which has resulted in a altogether different mental makeup.
We were the bus using-playground going-library using-home made food eating- kids.
These are the car using-mall going-internet using-fast food eating kids.
A sea change indeed.
It’s imperative that we break our shackles of traditional thought process and understand these kids thought process to better connect with them.
The end results would be astonishing,to put it mildly.
Let’s create a better place to live by becoming a part of this new generation.
Posted in Family.
By sanjay laddha
– May 5, 2009
The other day,while discussing with my teenager niece, it dawned on me that the Kids see - “not taking on responsibilty” as having fun. Having a good time can mean to a teenager different things-not picking up their own clothes,not tidying up their room,teasing younger siblings,throwing their weight around,not taking their studies too seriously etc.The sense of responsibility goes against the grain of fun.The young ones feel this is the right time to do full time masti-after this they would be too busy doing their chores to “enjoy” life.This appears to be a fatalistic attitude.Your work,your life is the biggest enjoyment.Unless and untill we mould our thought process to this definition of enjoyment-this attitude will prevail-to the detriment of all and sundry.
Posted in Family.
By sanjay laddha
– April 10, 2009
While going about my morning walk, I observed a group of retired people laughing,gossiping and enjoying themselves in the park.It struck me as a very optimistic attitude towards life.These retired people exhibit a liveliness to life-the universal life spark which keeps all of us going.They were not concerned with what other people would think about their loud talks-they were simply happy in the company of each other and enjoying every moment of it.Some of them would be suffering from physical ailments and others would crave for the mental peace - yet none of these problems were visible by their behaviour. There’s a big lesson for all of us here - Enjoy your life and live it to the maximum.
Posted in Blogs.
By sanjay laddha
– April 9, 2009
We,as Indians,are a un- adventerous race.Most of us seldom play any sports and are happy becoming couch potato-watching cricket on the tube.We believe in becoming arm chair critics,espousing our views on each and everything under the sun.This is amply reflected in the spate of reality shows on TV-except a few adventeous types-majority of them are associated with dance and music.We can count our world class sportsmen on fingers.The adventure sports industry is in infancy in our country.Sponsors are hard to find for a sporting event- because it is not commercially viable.The focus of Goverment on sports is non-existent. People simply do not love adventure.Maybe,the times are a changing with the recent spurt in sponshorships for Formula1 racing,winning Gold in Olympics etc.The coming generation of Indian would,hopefully,be more sporty and adventerous than us.
Posted in Blogs.
By sanjay laddha
– April 8, 2009
One of God’s greatest gift to us is a new sunrise every morning.Each new day brings with it new challenges,new opportunities and new joys.We should be able to experience the newness of each sunrise-if not-we are not renewing ourselves.The clean slate of a new morning brings with it freshness of ideas and thoughts.Everyone,irrespective of how much pressed (s)he is for time, should spend some time with themselves-preferably early in the morning-to think,dwell,introspect and connect with their soul.The resultant transformation will simply bowl us over.Just as watching any sport will give us joy , but playing the game yourself will give us a thrill which can only be experienced by doing it.So,let’s throw away our pillows in the morning and start doing any activity which we love doing-and we have taken a step in changing our lives.
Posted in Blogs.
By sanjay laddha
– April 7, 2009
Is it possible to work efficiently and yet be happy at our workplace? We,as Indian,equate work/job with something that is a necessary evil-you need to toil to bring home the cash for paying the bills.It is looked down as something which is stressful,full of politics,and not someplace you would love going -given a choice.Hence,the weekends are supposed to give us a break from all this. The concept of retirement comes into play from this analogy -You have toiled so hard for so many years,now you need to get away from all that and start enjoying life.People who are at work are supposed to be serious and exhibit the same.Yet-is it feasible to enjoy your work and be happy at your workplace? We need to ask this question in our hearts and look for some real answers-and the world would become a better place to work and live.
Posted in Blogs.
By sanjay laddha
– April 6, 2009
Keeping balance between one’s work and family life is a delicate task.You need to always keep a fine demarcation between the two fields and they would always tend to overlap.We have been bought up with a value system which focuses more on work life.The kids upbringing is assumed to be a full time task of the homemaker and the spouse is responsible for arranging the bread.This results in lop-sided development of the kids,who have been mostly exposed to only mother’s ideas,thoughts and actions.In case where both the parents start getting involved with day to day life of the kids,it results in mixed and confusing signals to kids.Getting both the parents on the same platform and talking to kids in a uniform manner is indeed challenging.The ones who have been able to take up this challenge and surpass it needs to be congratulated.Others need to step up their efforts to reach a stage of consensus-for the sake of kids.
Posted in Blogs.
By sanjay laddha
– April 3, 2009
One of the tough things-if you ask people around-is getting out of the bed early in the morning.”Early”-is relative-for some 5am is early and for some others - 7am fits the bill. Nevertheless, it’s a real pain for the uninitiated.You can think of a million reasons why not to get up early in the morning and even publish a paperback.The key differentiator between the people who do it and those who don’t is sheer will power.The power within ourselves to do what is good for us and not what is likeable by us- differentiate the boys from the men.It sounds so easy yet to go on doing it consistently,without failure, brings out our innate leadership qualities.Each of us is capable of doing so much more-but we choose not to - not to strecth ourselves and endure pain-to bring in a meaningful change.It’s time for us to revisit and explore.
Posted in Blogs.
By sanjay laddha
– April 2, 2009
