Transit

This is written in the throes of a 33 hour journey home through what I hereby moniker the Much Simplified International Transit System for the Eternally Clueless. It is therefore merely a set of impressions and highly unstructured rambling. So yeah, I'm jet lagged, and home for 15 days, and here's what I thought of the journey...

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London, Heathrow

There is a species I like to call the dazed traveller (and although we tend to notice the Indians/ Asians more, there are enough to go around for every skin color, race, and belief system). These poor blokes simply cannot follow signs, cannot help but confirm what the uniformed kind tell them with their neighbour in a line, and in spite of many rounds of questioning and problem solving, often end up doing the wrong thing. (I am not saying that I am not one of them, mark you...)

The international transit system is efficient - more so than would seem statistically possible (not unlike the Indian democracy, or the Indian Railways, or, well, anything vaguely bureaucratic in India. The signage from places as diverse as Buffalo, NY to Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai is consistent. The jargon is set. The IATA ticket formats, boarding passes, baggage tags, National passports, and a variety of immigration documents all look alike. Understand one set in one airport, and you are well on your way to being called a seasoned traveller. Denizens of the software industry arise - if ever there was an example of a triumphant "process" over "product" it is here. (The product, the dearly bought economy class passage, sucks).

It is bewildering, exciting, and flabbergasting that here I stand in the flight connections line next to people from Portugal, people headed to Tel Aviv, people who don't speak a word of English but operate via Gujarati interpreters, people from Omaha on vacation, headed to Kerala and lots of IT sweatshoppers like myself with their duty free liquor, horrible leather jacket ensembles (you should see mine!) and oh yes, let's not forget the everlasting smell of Dabur Amla Hair Oil.

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Mumbai, Sahar

This was the first time I came back from a long term trip abroad, and there was an indescribable sense of joy at seeing familiar landmark - the luggage check in guy that doesn't give a damn whether you're in a wheelchair or not, or the customs guy who is visibly slavering when you produce a $10 bill (I got through the Green Channel without incident or bribe by the way), or the obese, underpaid, thoroughly rude policeman picking his nose, (I was so swept with joy when I saw this particular creature, I coulda hugged him... but then he had a lathi.)

So yeah... sarcasm and the very nostalgic mosquito swatting apart, it rocks to return to your homeland - that word having taken newer, deeper levels if meaning for me ever since I moved to Buffalo...

I was accompanied in the flight from London by an "ex-im business" Gujarati who seemed intent on getting sloshed. He was rather good at it too, and was staggering and unable to write his name on the immigration form... So anyway... this guy is an NRI, does not see what the deal is with folks that get a H1/ GC and still come back to India, and roots more for the Pittsburgh Steelers than for the Indian cricket team. I found myself becoming increasingly aggressive nationalistic in front of this idiot. Really, to what extent are India's problems of today a result of the generation we lost (and are losing) to immigration through the 80s and 90s and now. Arguably, the best of the best left India, and then blamed the land for being the domain of the worst.

And by the way, When Indians are at the forefront of the denigration campaign against our nation, who can blame us? Roberta, a lady from Ottawa who sat next to me on the plane, (she has talked some missionaries into sending her to India for a couple of months - she confesses that while she will go comfort a few lepers and suchlike, she is really here to see the Maharajah palaces in "Jai-pour" and the backwaters near Kochi). She was impressed when approaching Mumbai - she hadn't thought the city would be such a sprawl, all lit with halogen lamps, and with high rises in evidence (I disappointed her somewhat when I explained that there is really no single "downtown" to Mumbai). She was also worried that she would be robbed silly like an unsuspecting lamb (Christian reference unintended) at a butcher convention.

I proceeded to assuage her fears - sort of - "Mumbai is no nest of larceny - that's Kowloon" - but then I did tell her to take a prepaid taxi rather than simply hail a cab from the kerb.

How do you sell a nation of economic disparities rivalled only by Africa, which arguably lives each day from meal to meal to a well meaning part-time missionary tourist?

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Aurangabad...

Finally, a note of appreciation for the last (and arguably best) hour of the journey... Jet Airways so totally beats the pants, undies and prostates off any American carrier...

Here's a rundown of my American Airlines flight from Buffalo to Chicago at the start of my journey - Enter plane, Listen to detailed safety instructions, Get one soda with ice, Get small packet of mini-pretzels with all the ingredients listed in small print, flight over.

And now the Jet flight from Mumbai to Aurangabad - Enter plane, get a cold towel, get a small bottle of lemonade, get your choice (in kind and number) of chocolates off a tray, get a breakfast comprising fruits, upama, masala dosa roll type thingies, and coffee. (Useless safety instructions and lack of contents/ small print on food packets went unnoticed)

By the way... the AA flight was 2 hours... the Jet flight was 45 minute. They cost the same. Cheers!