A hurried visit to Nokia's Chennai Factory

It's been a while since I last wrote. Not much has happened, at least nothing interesting. There was this activity that was pending since many months (at office). A few of my over-enthusiastic colleagues were curious to visit the Nokia manufacturing facility at Chennai to get a real view of how Nokia's cellphones are manufactured (all the steps from A to Z). The request was finally approved by the head honchos at my office and those at the Nokia factory. Since my team has almost 30 members, everyone could never agree on any single day to visit. Finally 10th June was the day when most (read most, not all) colleagues were fine with the visit. 10th June was a wednesday... I really didn't like the idea of returning by an early morning train on thursday and coming to office completely fatigued and worn-out but I didn't have much choice :-( . Since we were paying money from our own pockets, we decided to stick to a tight budget (I was hoping for a company-paid Free Flight to Chennai by Business class ;-) ). Also, we were not booking for any rooms since that would overshoot the budget and prolong the time spent there. We were leaving Bangalore in the morning and returning home the next morning!

The train was scheduled to leave Bangalore by 6.30am (Lalbagh express - chair car). A few of us (including me) who live inside the city, boarded the train at the Majestic railway station. The rest of us boarded the train at KR Puram since that was closer to Whitefield where most of my colleagues reside (due to the proximity to the office). I was travelling out of Bangalore by train after a long time - more than a decade in fact. This was the first time I was visiting Chennai and I was pleasantly surprised to find that 100% of the track between Bangalore and Chennai has been electrified.

What I was disgusted about during the Bangalore-Chennai journey, was how some people used the train to get to their destination without even buying tickets. They just boarded the train at small stations where the train stopped for a few minutes, stood for half an hour since they obviously didn't have any seats, and got down promptly at their destination stations and walked away. Most of these offenders were not from the labour class (although some part of them were of that class). They were decently clad in formal attire. Some people even had the audacity to sit in the passage between the seats. No one could get up from their chairs and move!! The amount of civic sense (or rather, the lack of it) that we Indians have is appalling, especially so in trains. And not to mention spitting out of the window, eating breakfast and throwing the used paper plates and washing hands outside the window. Do these clowns realize that the train travels at around 100kmph and at that speed, dirty water becomes a fine sewage spray for the innocent guy at the next compartment putting his face at the window and appreciating the outside scenery? and by the way crumpled plates provide for a nice Slap when it hits your cheeks at that speed if you are watching at the window. So why do these people offend so easily? Are they sadistic? No. It's just that when you get hit by dirty water or paper plates, you won't know who threw it- the guy behind you or the guy behind him or someone else. So they know they won't get caught. And yeah- it is easy to just reach out and throw the paper plates out of the window than go searching for a dustbin, right?

One of my colleagues next to me said "What more can you expect from a second class train?" and I knew he was right. All of these offenders should be fined heavily but alas, there are no such rules. I wondered where the TT went. He got in at the Bangalore Cantt. station and checked OUR tickets (people who were sitting in the seats) but why could no one monitor those hundreds of dastardly people who got in and out later without tickets? The train looked more like a BMTC 201 bus with the amount of people standing. Looks like Indian Railways has a long way to go in terms of improvement. They need to know that "perfect" trains like Rajdhani express and Palace-on-Wheels aren't the only trains in India. And instead of arguing over the ban of Coca-Cola and pepsi at Railway stations and replacing aerated soft drinks with Lassi and butter milk, let the railway ministry concentrate on more important issues like these. We will at least move another step towards civilization.

Aside from the topic of inefficient train management, let me get back to my original topic. We reached Arakkonam at around 10.45am. This place is around 40-50 km from Chennai. The Chennai heat hit us as soon as we got down from the train. We had hired a bus to pick us up from the railway station and take us to the Nokia factory. The bus was Air conditioned and most of us dozed through the 1 hour journey to the factory. After reaching the factory by 12 pm, we were served complimentary lunch. We completed the factory visit by around 3pm (I cannot divulge details of the visit for confidentiality reasons) and left the place by 3.30 pm. All I can say is, it was a thoroughly memorable visit.

We had booked the return tickets for Mysore Kaveri express which was scheduled to leave Chennai by 9.30 pm. Since we had the whole evening left, we headed towards Chennai city and our next stop was at Besant Nagar Beach. This was already pre-planned and most of the members had carried along a change of clothes, lest we got wet in the beach (which most people intended to do anyway). After crossing a narrow alley with a disgusting, nauseating odour of fish(a tiny fish market), we managed to reach the entrance to the beach. Our plan was to complete the beach outing by 7 pm, have dinner and then leave for the railway station.

We spent a good 2 hours on the beach. Some people ventured into the sea. Some others went horse riding, the rest took photographs or just chose to munch some snacks at the beachside stalls (me included in the latter category). After a plate of delicious Bajji/Bonda, Channa Dal Bhel puri and Peanut Bhel puri, my stomach was almost full. I had not brought any change of clothes either so I went for a small walk along the coast just for the feel of it. The beach was quite crowded that evening and the usual variety of crowd you can expect at beaches, were visible- small kids playing cricket, couples enjoying cozy moments together, foodies gorging happily at the snacks' stalls and families who wanted to have an evening outing, with the father/mother teaching their young kid(s) to stand still or swim when the tide washed ashore.

Behind the beach just a few hundred yards away was where I spotted the fishermen colonies. The identification never took long. As I was approaching a particular side of the beach, suddenly the stench of rotten fish became unbearable, I could see garbage strewn all along the place, and stray dogs moving around. Small huts where these fishermen obviously resided were abuzz with activity, presumably with the womenfolk cooking that night's dinner, small kids playing outside the huts and the fishermen themselves were busy sorting out their fish (whilst smoking beedis) after returning on their boats with that day's hard-earned catch. Being a vegetarian, I am not a big fan of edible fish or inquisitive about how they are caught from the sea. I could not bear that stench any longer and decided to return the way I came, making a beeline towards where my other colleagues were. On the way, I was little too over-confident about the position of the tide. I ventured closer towards the coast to take some good photos. For a minute my concentration was lost and the next tide hit me instantly, wetting the lower 1/3rd of my trousers and flooding my shoes and socks with water. I regretted not having brought my change of clothes :( My shoes were waterproof and dried almost instantly. For the socks, I had to borrow a table fan that a nearby corn vendor was using to get his charcoal to burn properly (read as a Gadi selling Muskin jola for you kannadigas). After drying the socks for 15 minutes with that table fan, some of the moisture was still there! :-( We moved out of the beach at 7 pm.

Besant Nagar Beach, Chennai




Yours truly, at the Chennai coastline

It was now time for us to go for dinner. 90% of my team were non-vegetarians, and most of them wanted to try the popular Chettinad cuisine which is supposed to be a set of Tamil-nadu style spicy non-veg dishes. They found a "good" Chettinad hotel near the beach and settled down there. We vegetarians were outnumbered!! We were just 3-4 of us and we wanted to join them but that hotel had only "Veg Salad" listed under vegetarian section!! So we went to another hotel called "Murugan's" which is supposed to be famous for Idly, Sambar and Vadas. After a simple and light helping of 2 Idlies and a Vada with some tasty Sambar, and a dessert of a "by 2" sweet pongal, we completed our dinner and waited for the others to join us in the bus. We reached the Chennai central railway station well within time and the train left Chennai by 9.30 pm.

In the sleeper coach, I had the middle berth to sleep on. Much to my dismay, because of my height my feet were jutting out of the berth almost by a foot when I slept and people passing by were mumbling and grumbling about my feet touching their heads. To make matters worse, the guys at the bottom berth were some strangers who wanted the windows closed for some strange reason. And so with a lack of oxygen and a few hundred curses by passersby, I spent an almost sleepless night till around 3 am. My colleagues who stay at Whitefield, got down at the KR Puram station at around 3.30 am. The train finally reached the Bangalore station at around 4.15 am. We had some difficulty negotiating with the pre-paid autorikshaw drivers over the fare. All said and done, I was at home by 5 am. My head was aching and my eyes were burning by now because of the lack of sleep. I hit the gym and did my hourly quota of workout from 5.30 to 6.30 am. I applied for sick leave that day and relaxed for the whole of that day. I in fact slept for much longer than what I would have on a normal night ;-)

The next day, it was back to work as usual

Until my next post, so long
KK