On A Loose End

Holiday packages seem to be the best way to travel to a country or a city in your own country. The holiday packages promoted by various tour operators do give the customers a hassle-free holiday in the sense that the customer does not have to plan anything, other than, of course, the destination, the travel dates, the period of the holiday and the amount of money which he is willing to spend. Besides that, the holiday packages are designed by the tour operator as per his own understanding of the place. It is like, the customer would actually be seeing and visiting the places that the tour operator thinks the customer should. The marketing department of these tour operators makes it sound like that they are covering the entire city or a country whereas in effect they are covering only the places which the discerning cutomer will recognize and get the feeling that all the important places have been covered. The customs, traditions and the culture of a city or a country are definitely no...

Once again it is proved that behind every nice, compassionate, intellectual and famous face lies a monster which understands only one language; Money. Irrespective of the wealth one has amassed, what one says to the media and what one projects himself or herself to be, the lure of money has stood the test of circumstances. All of us know that many celebrities were being paid obscene sums by various city hotels for performing at their New Year celebrations. The hotels subsequently had cancelled the functions citing the Mumbai Terror attacks. The news now, from a very reliable source is that the celebrities who had taken hefty advances for making an appearance in the functions are refusing to refund the advance amount to the hotels. So much for solidarity. The hotels are in a bind. In a way the celebrities are right, they did not back out of the deal, it is the hotels which cancelled the Program, so ideally the celebrities should get to keep the money. But if the reason for cancellation ...