Bombay: urban planning basket case - 2

Our corporators obviously do not believe in the dictum, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I just signed a petition against the proposed revamp of Rani Bagh, the city's largest botanical garden. If the plan goes through, many of the 3000 trees of 227 species will be felled to make way for an aquarium, theatre, car park and staff quarters. The cost of the operation will be about 500 crores, much of which will not be recovered even if ticket prices are increased enormously.
What the Rani Bagh plan demonstrates, aside from the sheer idiocy of the chaps at the helm of Bombay's affairs, is that money is not in short supply in the city. The state as well as the municipal corporation have plenty of funds coming in from octroi, stamp duty and other lucrative levies. The common complaint that Bombay is mistreated by the Maharashtra administration and deprived of its fair share of Central government income is nonsense. Just travel a little way east and experience summer afternoons without electricity and you'll know how privileged this city really is. The taxation argument is specious because most large companies which pay their dues in Bombay have factories located outside the city. Besides, if everything we gave the centre was returned to us, what would go toward alleviating poverty, defending our borders, building ports and inter-state highways? Big cities are expected to take care of themselves revenue-wise, aside from contributing to the national exchequer, and Bombay does that pretty efficiently.
It isn't a lack of funds that's hurting Bombay, so much as a lack of will and vision. How else can one explain the plan to build a skywalk from VT to Churchgate, Mantralaya and Colaba? That section of town, as many commentators have noted, is pretty pedestrian friendly. I walked from Colaba's 3rd Pasta Lane to VT just last evening, and found few barriers to movement despite the hawkers camped within the DN Road arcade. Near the Bennett Coleman building, pedestrians hurried across the road to the railway station, ignoring an overbridge available to them at that spot.
And there's the rub. The authorities find it impossible to maintain sites and enforce regulations that would keep our roads and pavements in good shape. To be more accurate, the authorities are reluctant to do these things, because that would be the equivalent of killing the goose that lays golden eggs. Vehicles parked in no-halt zones, unlicensed peddlers, pavement-blocking shanties, illegal extensions to shop fronts, all these are sources of income. The convenient approach is to leave them where they after penalising them for their transgressions, and offer expensive 'solutions' like skywalks, projects which themselves provide new revenue streams through kickbacks.

Kausik and Kiran

I wrote recently about sculptors who create quirky machines, and two more names can be added to that list: Kausik Mukhopadhyay and Kiran Subbaiah. They are currently showing at Pundole and Chatterjee & Lal respectively, and both exhibitions are well worth a visit.
Mukhopadhyay and Subbaiah make an interesting study in similarity and contrast. The former has transformed the Pundole gallery space into something like the laboratory of a mad inventor who sources machine components from flea markets. The assemblages mirror the chaos of India's bazaars and the mix and match feel of its urban centres. Metronomes go wild at the gallery's far end; closer to the entrance, a tank that can be operated by visitors points its barrel this way and that; a plastic motorcyclist spins round inside a table fan, mimicking the 'globe of death' stunt familiar from circuses.
When I visited the gallery two days after the opening, only one of the dozens of gizmos Mukhopadhyay had dreamed up was malfunctioning, which was pretty good going considering the usual standards of our artists. The contraptions were switched on only when we walked into the gallery, because keeping them going was creating an unbearable racket.



There was no such issue with Kiran Subbaiah's constructions. Subbaiah is a cerebral artist who has degrees from Santiniketan's Kala Bhavan, Baroda's MS University, and London's Royal College of Art. His sculptures and digital prints combine a prankster's humour and anarchistic attitude with precise conceptualisation and rigourous attention to form. In a work titled 'Articulation', a ball of twine serves as a brain, leading out to a dangling 'tongue', which happens to be tied near its loose end. Another ball lies on the floor, prevented from rolling about by attached wheels, instruments of locomotion that have become impediments to movement. On a table close by, a wedge of watermelon has turned into a sickle: slice becoming slicer.
Conceptually-oriented works are often one-trick ponies, and some of Subbaiah's are no exception. Even one-trick ponies can have abiding value provided they satisfy two conditions which have remained constant since Marcel Duchamp invented the one-trick pony artwork a century ago: first, the one trick must be a really good trick; and second, the pony should have some attractive qualities apart from its trick. The sculptures and photographs at Chatterjee & Lal satisfy both conditions.

Tendulkar, Goody and Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds is a scam. Celebrities are co-opted into this scam because being selected for a Tussauds waxwork has successfully been marketed as a huge honour. So, people like Sachin Tendulkar consent to spending hours getting measured for a wax figure, and, once the model is ready, posing next to the likeness in a publicity shoot covered in most national dailies. Indians planning a holiday in London see the article and put Madame Tussauds in their places-to-visit list.
The scam takes advantage of the fact that, while cameras do not function like eyes, people believe they do. In photographs, the wax Sachin Tendulkar bears a fair resemblance to the live man, though the Tussauds marketing team must have wished the great batsman had shaved before the photo-op. When people actually visit the collection and see the work in three dimensions, they will find an uninteresting dummy placed alongside other equally uninteresting dummies, which happen to be crafted in the dimensions of the persons they represent.

Jade Goody's husband has been lobbying to have a figure of his wife installed in the museum, claiming it was one of her final wishes. Tussauds is unlikely to consent, for featuring the reality TV star would lower the profile of its dummy list. A death mask of Goody might be more appropriate than a full figure. The original Madame Tussaud, after all, came to public attention in the era of the French revolution by casting the faces of executed prisoners. Many of those casts still exist, and are displayed in a back room of the tourist attraction, categorised under 'History'. When I visited the place, having been directed there by a solicitous aunt during my first stay in London, I found the history section a huge relief from the tedium of the main exhibit.

Update April 15: Today's Mumbai Mirror carries an excerpt from this post in its column Blogger's Park. While the publicity is welcome, I'm amazed that the Mirror has actually set one of its sub-editors on my piece. Is it ethical to change the content of a blog in this fashion?
Aside from being irked, I'm surprised that the Mirror's subs have time spare to correct entries that need no correcting. The shoddy grammar evident in pieces filed by their reporters gives the impression of an organisation deeply understaffed in the proof-reading department.

Jerusalem

For Good Friday, here's a passage I wrote after visiting Egypt and Israel.

If victimhood is the religion of our age, Jerusalem must be its sanctum. The old city is divided in four, and plaints rise from each quarter, crying, ‘we, too, have suffered’. Dominant among them is the Holocaust, preserved in Israel’s consciousness through museums and memorials. A single man’s death in Jerusalem two thousand years ago provides a counterweight to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis in Europe. The instrument of his torture has become the central symbol of the world’s largest faith. Believers come from around the globe to reenact Christ’s final journey, to bear the cross for a few steps, to halt and weep at each station.

Members of Jerusalem's most populous community, the Arab Muslims, have their own grievances, stemming from the annexation of their part of the city in 1967. Heavily-armed Israeli soldiers stand at every corner, impervious to the resentful looks they receive from shopkeepers and passersby in the tense streets. Muslims are ashamed and outraged that one of their holiest sites, holding the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque, is under alien control. The armies of Islam wrested the town, seemingly for ever, after centuries of Crusades and Jihads; to have had it taken away in the modern era by a minuscule community is an unendurable humiliation. Inside the complex, a museum highlights the cruelty of the present dispensation. Israeli soldiers have, on occasion, entered the site and even shot protestors within it. Bloodied clothes worn by these martyrs to the Palestinian cause are displayed in the museum. They have become soiled with age, the blood has dried and turned dirty brown, but their power to move the faithful remains undiminished.

Finally there are the Armenians, who exist in such small numbers that they need to advertise their presence, and their own tragedy. Posters glued on walls in their section of town remind visitors of the first genocide of the twentieth century, in which over a million Armenians were killed under the orders of the Young Turks, who had taken over the reins of the fading Ottoman Empire.

That event, unlike the Holocaust, barely makes the text-books. Most tourists would be hard-put to locate Armenia on the map. The Armenians are outsiders for another reason: three of the tragedies which permeate the atmosphere of Jerusalem are interconnected. Christ’s crucifixion, blamed on Jews who were said to have sinned against the light, inspired centuries of European prejudice against that community. The exiles, pogroms and massacres Jews endured in Europe gave birth to a Zionist ideal that could only flourish through suppression of Arab natives. The Armenian tragedy connects to none of this, it is like flotsam washed ashore in a distant land by the tide of history.

Travelling to Jerusalem after visiting Cairo brings home the vastly different ways in which people connect to their past. The avenues of Egypt’s capital are lined with magnificent three thousand year old monolithic statues. Sculptures which the world’s major museums would fight to possess stand unprotected, meriting barely a glance from locals. The incredible riches of the Egyptian Museum, the massive pyramids on the city’s outskirts fronted by the Sphinx, evoke pride among Cairenes, but little passion. Jerusalem, though exceptionally picturesque, comes a poor second to Cairo where ancient heritage is concerned. Almost nothing has been found dating from the last era of Jewish control, let alone the earlier age of David and Solomon. There is the Wailing Wall, of course, and a couple of columns here, an arcade there. Yet each stone, each pillar, each church and mosque, is invested with an astonishing level of emotional attachment. The barest evidence of the remains of a Jewish dwelling occasions a grandiose reconstruction. If such revisionings are to be believed, Jerusalem’s palaces in the time of Jesus were an unflattering mix of Roman and Asian styles. Their lack of beauty and proportion is irrelevant, because the excavated artefacts and standing monuments of Jerusalem, unlike those of Cairo, are living history, which is full of evasions, conflicts and lies, but all the more compelling for that reason.

NDTV's seven (er, make that ten) Wonders of India

Did you follow NDTV's extraordinarily tedious catalogue of India's architectural landmarks (with a few natural sites thrown in for good measure) titled Seven Wonders of India? I presume not, for why would you follow an extraordinarily tedious catalogue of anything? The series began last year, and I watched it for a couple of minutes now and then while channel surfing. After a few weeks spent covering heritage monuments -- shot and edited in the annoying blurry-pan-and-jump-cut style that is now the industry standard -- the show shifted to indoor settings where bored, overdressed celebrities were told what was worth treasuring in their respective states.
Last week, when the final results were announced, the channel cheated. Instead of narrowing the choice down to seven as promised, ten sites made it to the final list. Aside from the 7 Wonders -- Konark, Khajuraho, Madurai's Meenakshi temple, Jaisalmer Fort, Delhi's Red Fort, Nalanda and Dholavira -- the Taj Mahal was nominated The Wonder of India (yawn), Tawang Monastery got a nod as Spiritual Wonder of India, and the Golden Temple was dubbed Wonder of India: Peace and Harmony, a peculiar award for a complex that not long ago became a refuge for well-armed terrorists and was stormed by the Indian army.

Obama's plan: more of the same?

The President of the United States says the world is facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The US Treasury Secretary, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, has two big tasks before him. "The first is to "minimize the damage as the world works its way out of the excesses" of lending and speculation that almost inevitably led to the crisis. And, second, "to focus on how the architecture or framework of the global financial system is going to change over time ... to deal with the next crisis." The US government's response to the grave systemic threat, framed by the likes of Larry Summers, comes under scathing attack from the economists Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.
But that was 1998, why bring it up now?
Well, you probably know why. It feels like deja vu all over again. The persons involved are a decade older, two of them have received Nobel gongs in the intervening period, but Sachs, Krugman and Stiglitz, along with a number of Leftish thinkers, are once again ranged against Summers, who was assistant to Robert Rubin in the Clinton era and is now advising Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
I'm not familiar enough with the world of finance to fully understand the Summers-Geithner plan, but I get its bare bones, as well as the main thrust of the counter-argument. Geithner-Summers want a public-private partnership to buy up so-called toxic assets. Krugman, Stiglitz and Sachs suggest this is just more genuflecting before Wall Street. Taxpayers will take most of the risks while private financial institutions stand to gain most of the profit, should there be any.
So why did Obama choose this direction? The alternative suggested by free marketeers is to do nothing. If institutions go under, so be it, bailouts are unfair and should never be resorted to. This view, rejected by the Bush administration, was never likely to be adopted by Obama. Of the proposals from the Left, one involves a complicated surgery to divide each institution into 'bad' and 'good' components, but the most popular idea is to nationalise troubled banks.
I believe Obama's decision to take the middle path between doing nothing and nationalisation should be seen in the context of his other acts, which are breathtaking in scope. His budget attempts a fundamental change in energy policy, and inaugurates a significant rethinking of education and healthcare. Two days ago, we got news that the military will be rejigged, ridding it of its big-nations-pitted-against-one-another mindset. Internationally, Obama has reached out to Iran, slapped Israel on the wrist over settlements in occupied territory, shifted policy with respect to Cuba and Syria, recast the nature of the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, admitted the US bears some culpability for drugs-related violence in Mexico, and called for a renewed disarmament dialogue with Russia and an end to nuclear weapons. Each of these is a step leftward that, in less trying times, would have induced outrage among conservatives, but Obama's got away relatively easily because anybody going after him for this stuff right now would resemble Billy Zane chasing Leonardo DiCaprio around the sinking Titanic.
Had the US president decided to nationalise banks, he'd have been bogged down fighting for a proposal deeply antithetical to the way the United States thinks of itself. He'd have spent all his political capital tackling the financial crisis, making it nearly impossible to push through his ambitious agenda on health care, the environment, defense and foreign policy. Had the nationalisation plan, having been put in motion, then failed to right the system fairly quickly, the Democratic party would have been locked out of the Presidency for the foreseeable future, and seen its numbers slide precipitously in the Senate and House.
In this light, it is easy to understand why Obama went along with Geithner's Wall Street friendly plan. It doesn't mean he's pursuing the same studiously centrist path that Bill Clinton did, and I'm surprised liberal commentators have failed to see the wisdom in the approach he's chosen.

The Inimitable Bobilli

The Times of India's sports section is a source of hilarity each morning, thanks to the writings of Bobilli Vijay Kumar. Mr. Bobilli's approach to the English language resembles the batting of some tailenders who, undetered by their lack of eye-hand coordination, keep spectators entertained with extravagant heaves, swipes and slashes.
As the Indian cricket team's tour of New Zealand reaches its damp conclusion, let us cast our eyes back on some of BVK's memorable insights into the contest. These are not, I should stress, carefully chosen highlights: those who trawl TOI's user-hostile archives will doubtless land a richer catch.

14 February: Dhoni's men will be setting off in pursuit of the game's Holy Grail itself, on a mission many deem nigh impossible.
Yes, New Zealand, for all its beauty and purity, has always been a dreaded place for cricketing tourists: its spongy wickets, windy conditions, tenacious players (not to speak of blinkered umpires, not too long ago) made it an ideal holiday

spot for pesky mothers-in-law.
Playing away has, of course, rarely been as enjoyable as a walk in the rain: but over the years, thanks partly to the shrinking of the globe, such an idea doesn't give the shivers anymore...
Only five players have experienced the travails of New Zealand. A lot will depend on how well Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman convert that into an advantage. The others, even if they are in the pink of form, will have to grope and cope around them.
In the end, it will all come down to overcoming the conditions. Can India interpret the omens on their way correctly? Can they unravel the Holy Grail and come back triumphant?

Some might argue that lifting the World Cup or beating Australia in Australia would be a more substantial achievement than winning a series in New Zealand. What I really want to know, though, is how grails are unraveled.

26 February: The problem is, the next game is in less than 24 hours; there is absolutely no time to pull out Plan B.

Memo to Gary Kirsten: incorporate intensive training in pulling out Plan B, there is clearly room for improvement in that area.

7 March: The Indian cricket team was left swinging on a tricky question after the second one-dayer was officially abandoned at around 8.30pm on Friday night...
In a game that saw more stops than starts, or indeed wickets, India were ahead right from the time the dubious coin twirled in the air.

Which means that, on at least one occasion, play stopped without first having started, right? And why was the coin 'dubious'? Did it have two heads or two tails?

14 March: If the square is shorter than a fine lady's leg on the one side, on the other, the cover boundary looks even sweeter. The NZ bowlers must already be feeling bare and helpless: in fact, gang-rape can't be far from their fears...
It's their bowling that needs urgent aid from Red Cross: and India will not want to be that benevolent soul.

Bet you didn't know that fine ladies have short legs.

15 March: Sehwag faced four deliveries and couldn’t manage even one run: the ball beat his gasping willow and seamed maniacally, almost in celebration, after that...
Daniel Vettori stuck to his much-mauled seamers and reaped their dividends.

Allow your bowlers to reap their own dividends, Daniel, it's the considerate thing to do, specially in these harsh times.

30 March: Resuming the day on 252 for two, with danger still looming nearby, the overnight pair (Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar), had to bury their heads into the ground and forget about everything else.

The myth that ostriches bury their heads in sand when faced with predators is used as a metaphor for the human tendency to ignore bad news. "Dig in" is the phrase usually utilised in the situation in which Tendulkar and Gambhir found themselves. It's derived from trench warfare, and refers to resolute defence in the face of sustained attack.

7 April: (I have provided more extensive annotations to articles published this morning) Rahul Dravid barely needed seven overs into the tour here to claim his 181st Test catch. The edge from Martin Guptill, in the first test at Hamilton, helped him sit on par with Mark Waugh, who needed all of his 128 matches to become the best catcher in the game.

Does having the most catches mean being the best catcher? Even if it does, Mark Waugh got to the world record long before his final test. Near the end of his career he dropped a few sitters.

But then the long wait began. India took 29 wickets since then but Dravid didn’t get his record-breaking catch... It didn’t help that in the second Test at Napier, he had to stand at third slip as Yuvraj Singh was handed that position. ..

Does this mean both players stood at third slip? Must have been cramped.

The 182nd catch deserved special treatment; he slowly got up and pumped his fists like Hercules.

Strangely, in books I've read related to Greek mythology, Hercules never once pumps his fists.

Zaheer Khan bowled 15 straight overs, either side of lunch, but couldn’t expose the top order.

That's like saying, 'he dug and he dug, but couldn't expose the soil's surface'. The job of new ball bowlers is to remove the top order, thus exposing the middle, and potentially lower, order.

He accounted for McIntosh and Flynn; but NZ are not all about apples: they have a few decent bats as well.

I get the connection between apple and McIntosh, but where does Flynn come into that equation?

Harbhajan, who had started bowling a few overs before lunch, was almost unplayable. Using the breeze, he got the ball to dip and turn or bounce after pitching. Suddenly, the Kiwis looked like they were on a burning tin roof.

Tin roofs get hot in the sun, but aren't flammable as far as I know.

I intend updating this post periodically with effusions from the keyboard of the inimitable Bobilli. If you come upon a passage worth a mention, do point me to it, I'll add it along with any comment you may have.

UPDATE 1: Gautam Gambhir completes his century: He punched the air, came out of his helmet and thanked the skies above. (thanks, pp)

2: After strutting around for more than 15 years, Australia have finally started walking with their tails tucked under the legs.
Are they really being ensnared by that monster called vicious cycle? Or are they just the latest victims of the malaise not-so-popularly known as the champion's syndrome? (thank you, av)

3. Sunday, April 19: Unfortunately, it looks like Bobilli isn't covering the IPL for the Times. However, we still have his column to look forward to. This from today's piece, make of it what you will: The cricket captain in some ways is larger than life, if not the game itself: unlike in other sports, he is not just the leader on the field whose job is to keep the flock together; he can't be only mother, father, brother, teacher for each and every player.

4: Monday, June 8, following Federer's victory over Soderling in the French Open final: ... the brave Swede just couldn’t pin Federer to his backhand, allowing himself to be demolished as delicately as a craftsman can. The grammar indicates that the 'craftsman' is Soderling, though of course Bobilli is referring to Federer when he uses that term. Craftsmen, it is worth mentioning, are not associated with demolitions, however delicate.

5: Sunday, July 12: Almost two years ago, when the Dilip Vengsarkar-led selection panel decided that it was time for hot blood, it seemed that Dravid's career was going cold too: his form had gone for a walk and his bat was behaving like an invisible stick; not too surprisingly, impulsive minds started ringing.

News items that sounded like April Fool's jokes, but weren't

My last Fool's Day related post. Three stories from April 1 or thereabouts which could have passed for jokes.
Story 1: A researcher from Tabriz, Iran, has published a paper titled, 'Ejaculation as a potential treatment of nasal congestion in mature males'. Sina Zarrintan suggests in the publication Medical Hypotheses that, since breathing problems during hayfever attacks are caused by inflamation of blood vessels in the nose, this might be countered by ejaculating, which leads to a constriction of blood vessels across the body. The neurologist has not studied his hypothesis on live subjects, but is convinced his treatment is preferable to prescribed decongestants, which, “if used for more than two or three days, can actually make congestion worse".
The dosage is adjustable, according to Zarrintan: "It can be done time-to-time to alleviate the congestion and the patient can adjust the number of intercourses or masturbations depending on the severity of the symptoms".

Story 2: A bank called up Bombay's Naresh Goomer to check if he had booked air tickets worth Rs.75,000 online in the recent past. When Goomer said he hadn't, the bank provided him with the name, mobile number and booking address of the passengers who had bought Bombay to Jaipur and Jaipur to Lucknow flights on Goomer's wife's credit card. Goomer took the information to the Juhu police, telling them they could intercept the culprits once they checked in at the airport. Instead, the police called the suspect's mobile number from the station's landline. Nobody answered. When the landline rang a few minutes later, the officer picked up the phone and said, "Juhu police station", at which point the caller hung up without saying a word. On being asked for his version of the story, Juhu senior police inspector Deepak Katkade said: "Investigations are going on and I cannot reveal the progress at this point of time. But we will definitely crack the case.''

Story 3: Sanjay Dutt has been made National General Secretary of the Samajwadi Party.

MTNL: Always Fool's Day

After the ATMs yesterday, it's the turn of my Net connection to break down, forcing me to head for the neighbourhood cybercafe. It isn't just me: most subscribers to MTNL's broadband service were unable to access the Web through the day. The employee who registered my complaint said they've been overwhelmed by calls from irate customers. Apparently, MTNL officers have struck work today over wage demands. I suspect there's been some sabotaging of services as part of their protest.
Have these chaps done anything to deserve the pay hike they're demanding? Despite all the benefits the government provides MTNL and its sister concern BSNL, the two companies are struggling to keep pace with private telecom operators. Of course, managers will provide a litany of grouses that appear legitimate, but consider this: the government has given the two firms a huge, many would argue unfair, headstart in rolling out 3G services across the country. You'd think they'd immediately launch a massive campaign to capture customers, but two months after starting 3G operations in Delhi, MTNL has attracted only 300 subscribers. 300! BSNL has launched 3G in 24 towns, and now has a subscriber base of, wait for it, 2900.
The delay in 3G auctions was the final failure for a UPA telecom policy that's been a shambles from the get-go. Eventually, though, Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance and others will be permitted to offer enhanced mobile connectivity. Once that happens, the public sector undertakings will have trouble retaining even the few thousand clients they have on their roster.

Banks play pranks

There hasn't been too much April foolery in the dailies this morning. Maybe it's because history has played enough jokes on us these past fifteen months. Imagine somebody predicting two years ago: as oil prices rise, more grain will be converted to fuel, sparking food riots in a dozen countries. Oil will rise to nearly 150 dollars a barrel and then collapse under $40. Hundred year-old financial institutions will go bankrupt. An island with one of the highest living standards in the world will need an IMF bailout. The US will nationalise or part-nationalise its banking and insurance sectors. The American President will sack the head of General Motors. The world's economy will shrink for the first time in sixty years.
What could a newspaper print to top all this?
I did feel like the butt of an April Fool's prank this morning. I went to town to buy an air ticket which had to be paid for in cash. My bank, HDFC, has a branch on Marine drive, right next to the airline's office. I popped in there, to be told the machine was out of order. Can I cash a cheque, then? Sorry, we're on financial year-end accounts duty, the branch is shut for customers. No problem, I thought, there are plenty of ATMs in the area. I trudged around Churchgate in 40 degree heat and couldn't find a single machine that would spit out the required currency notes. The Reserve Bank's mandate that all ATMs should be free-to-use starting today had obviously thrown a spanner in the works.
I don't know why the RBI took this decision. It's true that charges for customers of one bank who used the ATM of another were not transparent. But eliminating cross-bank usage fees will disincentivize the expansion of ATM networks. Banks might spin off most of their machines into separate companies which charge everybody equally.
I ended up at another HDFC branch, where the ATM was working, but in an ungenerous mood. It kept asking me to enter a smaller amount, and finally deigned to provide 5000 rupees, well short of what I needed. When I prodded it again, I was told I'd fulfilled my day's quota. I went into one of those mindless repitition exercises, feeling like Oliver Twist asking for more soup. It was all in vain, and I'm back home now without the air ticket, feeling I've been punk'd.