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1月13日 Royal Rajasthan on Wheels: Days of Royal style travel re-visited. After the stupendous popularity of the Palace on Wheels, Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation's new venture, Royal Rajasthan on Wheels set out on it's maiden commercial run on Sunday from New Delhi.
    The fully air-conditioned luxury train claimed to be as luxurious as Oriental Express of Europe and the Blue Train of South Africa, will provide wonderful historical experience of Rajasthan during the seven day sojourn. A joint venture of of RTDC and Indian Railways, the luxury train aims at attracting high end tourists to Rajasthan. Those who choose to travel on RROW will experience sheer opulence and comfort as they travel through the heartland of Rajasthan. Compared to the Palace on Wheels, the Royal Rajasthan is more spacious. It's cabins have more storage space, the bathrooms are bigger, and it has two dining rooms to accomodate all passengers. It will be the only train in India to have a top class Spa. The train will have the Spa and Wi-fi facility from March onwards. There is a wide range of food to choose from and also a library for book lovers, as well as a range of drinks. The exquisitely fabricated coaches have traditional Rajasthani names.The two restro-lounges are by the name of Swarn Mahal and Sheesh Mahal while the deluxe saloons will remind one of the historical monuments like Hawa Mahal, Jogi Mahal, Kumbha Palace, Ummaid Palace and Lal Garh Palace. The tariff for super deluxe saloon is USD 2000 per suite, per person per night., deluxe USD 800 per person per night on twin sharing basis. Service taxes extra. http://www.royalrajasthantravels.com/
1月10日 Air India: Most horrific airlines in operation today. My friend, Anita, visits India every year from the US, like many other Indians living overseas. Every year, she travels aboard the national carrier, Air India, and vows never to board a flight on this airlines ever again. Actually, she has no choice. Tickets on board other airlines are overbooked about six months in advance. Anita is always late in doing her ticket bookings as her busy schedule does not allow her to take leave on regular intervals. As a result, she almost always finds herself stuck with a flight on the most dismal airlines ever, the state-run Air India.
I am writing this blog not out of unpatriotic leanings, but to warn other innocent travellers to avoid this airline at any cost. Do not get influenced by the advertisements proclaiming that the airlines has had a make-over and that it's services have been updated, upgraded and all the other advertising jargon.
On the night of January 7th, 2009, 11p.m., Anita reported at the Santa Cruz airport (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport), Mumbai, to catch a Mumbai-London-Newark flight. Her flight was slated at 2 a.m., so she was absolutely running by the schedule. However, after hours of waiting, the airlines staff announced that the flight was not going to take off at all, until 10 a.m, of the following morning (January 8th, 2009). The passengers were beside themselves with exhaustion and anger at not being given any notice and having to wait for so long all night in vain. Some were doled out an unsavoury breakfast of a lump of Upma ( a kind of porridge with seasoning), and others, who were catching the Chicago flight were told flatly that they would not be served any breakfast as they'd be boarding very shortly on their flight. (This was told to them after they were handed over breakfast coupons). Anita ate the cold lump of Upma in fear of going hungry for the rest of the wait till journey's end. At around 10 a.m., (and an almost 10 hour wait with no annoucements whatsoever), they were made to board the Air India flight to Newark.
The horror didn't end here. The Airlines' infamous crew, comprising elderly, withered, and painfully made-up stewards and stewardesses, greeted the passengers with cold compassion. On the entire journey*, Anita was served only two meals, the description of which would easily match those given to prision inmates. The portions were insufficent,and the food unappetising,to say the least.The irony of it all was, that this was the service given to people who were paying upto $1700 per ticket, and these were a far cry from prisoners: they were all dignified people holding respectable positions in society. At night, the cabin crew all retired to the Business Class, where they slept soundly, as that section went completely unoccupied, and it wasn't hard to guess why. When morning dawned, the aging crew arose, with a fresh layer of make-up caking their skins, and not cracking a smile.
Anita's flight was a hopping one, which meant that her flight had an hour and a half stopover at London's Heathrow Airport. The passengers were de-planed,and huddled up into an enclosure with glass walls, and no toilets(rest-rooms). The transit time too spilled over to two hours and a half, after which the bynow frantic passengers all boarded their aircraft and immediately formed a queue outside the restrooms.(God knows of the plight of the sick, senior,travellers or those with small children in attendance.)
The happy ending is that Anita has reached the safe confines of her home in the US. Her horrifying journey of nearly 50 hours has thankfully come to an end. She has again taken a vow NEVER to travel on an Air India flight. Let's see how her luck goes the next time around!
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* The average flight time between US and India is 22 hours.
* India runs private carriers like Jet Airways and Kingfisher on International routes also. They have amazingly good reports on their overall service.
* Most International Airlines are linked to Mumbai and/or New Delhi....you have to be alert to bag your tickets on the good ones.
1月8日 These are a few of my favourite things.... I love browsing in bookstores. Lately I was in one of the big bookstores of the city, called Landmark. Unfortunately, it was the weekend, and people were crawling out of every nook and cranny. The smell of the crowd mixed with the new books, made me feel a wee bit light-headed. However, excited at seeing so many books on display, I got around to the bookshelves. When I looked right, the placard said "Religion", and then tapered it down to "Christianity", "Hinduism", "Islam", "Buddhism" and so on and so forth. I decided that I wanted to read about Jesus Christ, and asked the storekeeper for any book titled "Passion of the Christ". This person busily went to a boy attendant at the desk, and both of them diligently typed out "Fashion of the Christ", (to search the database on the computer), till I noticed and corrected them.Another attendant had in the meantime, materialised out of nowhere, and seemed more well-read than the rest of his cronies, and informed me that the book I was asking for was last sold in the year 2004!
Not to be disheartened, I picked up a book called "The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Living", written by a Tibetan monk. I read the summary at the back, and found the topic to be too deep for my present frame of mind. Books and bookshelves ran on for many metres, and book lovers were by now, bumping into each other, for lack of space. It seemed strange that big, busy,noisy, cities held so many bookworms. Did anyone out here actually find time to read? This was a stupid thing to think, for books today are so broad based. There is Literature, Fiction, Non Fiction, Romance, Classics, Indian Authors writing in English, Academic books, Management books, How to Prepare for Exams Books, Travelogues, Occult,the Sciences, Technical Books, Philosophy and History.
I left the bookstore with a tinge of sorrow, as I could not get what I wanted. The ones that interested me were too expensive, and the one that I really wanted was out of stock. I wish books were cheaper and we didn't have to rely on the pirated versions of good paperbacks that one can pick up for a fraction of the cost of the original. Somehow the pirated versions don't give you the same feeling as an original does.
Recently I was presented with a book by Paul Coelho, and that's what I'm reading! Which book are you reading right now?
1月4日 Sinusitis:Facts seldom known. A patient with sinusitis can have such varied symptoms that he may mistakenly visit the physician, paediatrician, opthalmologist, dentist or neurologist!
Sinusitis is an infection of the small, air-filled cavities within our facial skeleton called sinuses. The sinuses serve to lighten the skull and along with the nose they play a defensive role through their humidification and micro particle trapping and flushing action. The sinuses drain into the nasal cavity through small openings. If the openings get blocked due to any reason, secretions accumulate, microorganisms multiply and infection occurs resulting in sinusitis. The disease pathology can spread to the throat, ears, lower respiratory airways and lungs, causing seemingly unrelated symptoms such as chronic throat irritation, throat pain, ear discomfort,impaired hearing, ringing in the ears, and chronic cough.
CAUSES: The most common initiating factor in sinusitis is a viral common cold affecting the nose. The viruses can spread to the sunuses and pave way for a secondary bacterial infection and subsequent acute sinusitis. Inappropriate treatment of the acute episode or the presence of predisposing factors can lead to a chronic debilitating condition. The duration of the disease can give a clue to whether it is a common cold, acute sinusitis, or chronic sinusitis. Common cold lasts 1-2 weeks and is mild in nature. Acute sinusitis lasts less than a month. Chronic sinusitis lasts more than one month.
SYMPTOMS: A patient with sinusitis can have such varied symptoms that he will mistakenly visit a physician, neurologist, dentist or opthalomologist! The symptoms can be confined to the nose, like nasal blockage, nasal discharge, smell dysfunction, or there may be heaviness in the head, headache, eye pain, toothache or facial pain, depending on the sinus involved. Fever is more common in the acute variety.
Post-nasal drip is a common problem resulting in throat irritation, throat pain, and cough which patients and many doctors themselves fail to attribute to the sinusitis resulting in inadequate treatment. There may be ear complaints such as fullness or pain, ringing sounds, hearing impairment, and even dizziness secondary to eustachian tube dysfunction. There may be accompanying symptoms such as bad breath, taste impairment, frequent to constant tiredness, long standing cough which responds poorly to vaious cough remedies.
TREATMENT: Treatment options can be broadly divided into surgical and non surgical options. The extent and and nature of the surgical intervention is strictly tailored to the individual patient. Restoration of the dysfunctional ventilation and drainage pathways of the sinonasal tract is the mainstay of the surgical treatment. The majority of the sinus surgeries are performed endoscopically in the modern day scenario and hence entail minimal morbidity and minimal hospital stay.
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Article courtesy: The Deccan Herald, Bangalore,Saturday, January 3, 2009.
The author is Dr. Sonia S Venugopal,
ENT Consultant, Columbia Asia Hospital.
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