But I Didn’t Expect It

The boarder guard was bored.  I looked for a smile.  Trying to engage him.  He was sullen and eventually stamped my passport.  What could I expect at 1:45AM: “John, you’re back?  Everyone, John is back in India for the first time in five years!”  Syncopated head-bobs.  Kick the bhangra beat.  Everyone in line, and everyone behind a counter and everyone in the Duty Free shops commence to dance in unison.  “John has come.  John is here.”  I imagined dancing, in general.  And I wrote my daughters to tell them that, just like on the Bollywood videos at Victor’s Indian Restaurant near our home, everyone here at the airport was singing and spinning in brilliant choreography, because that’s how it is in the movies, every time. 

Emerging into the welcome hall a while later I had lots of time to amble about.  I was to rendezvous with my friend at another terminal at 5:00AM for a connecting flight.  I needed to eat.  I needed a SIM card.  Airtel told me I could buy a SIM card but it would be two days before it would be turned on.  I’d be leaving in three days so this was a non-starter.  “Try Vodafone, down the way,” they suggested.  So, I did. 

The guys at the car service next to Vodafone must have been paid on commission.  “Sir! Sir!, Car! Car!”  I ignored them and proceeded to the two lethargic young guys behind the Vodafone counter, who were clearly not comped on success.  Eventually one put down his phone and explained my options. I could buy a card.  It would be activated in three hours.  “Just fill this out.  Give me a photograph.  You don’t have a photograph?  It’s alright.  I’ll take your photograph.”  I could feel the infectious head bob working its way into my neck muscles the way one involuntarily begins to bow, after the first few minutes in Japan.  A tense American peer with glasses and a t-shirt had walked up to the car joint at the adjoining counter and began insisting upon a driver with good English.  “Make sure he can speak English.  Do you understand?  English.  Good English.  I know where I’m going.”  What a dick.

I went up to the Costa Coffee.  Leaving Beijing neither the airport Starbucks nor the Costa Coffee had any vegetarian sandwiches, salads.  “I don’t want a muffin.”  But this, this is India. And yes there were veg options, but the Costa crap looked miserable.  Down the hall was one of those strange, local fast food places that try and fail at feeling familiar: “Vaango!”  I had a look at what Vaango! offered.  Dhosas. Cool.  I ordered the biggest one on the menu.  Another tired young fellow behind the counter now asked if I was sure.  “Yeah, I’m sure.  I’ll take a lassi and one of those other things in the picture too.   He calls me up once, he calls me up twice.  It appears I’ve ordered the two-dhosa special and my four-person table is completely covered in food trays.  It’s airport, fast-food dhosa but I didn’t expect it.  I'd forgotten about those little black seeds in with the potatoes.  It’s wonderful.

Off to my right is a place offering rooms for naps.  This suddenly sounds like the most wonderful thing in the entire world as the dhal and dhosa-matter settles into my gut.  I ask the price.  Its 3000 rupees for three hours.  I have no idea how much that is properly but I reckon it’s less than fifty bucks.  Hmmm.  I think about it.  I consider the quick descent.  I think about the rough ascent.  I decide to return to the Costa to kill the next hour there instead, where I continue my read of Eugene Onegin, the iambic tetrameter pattern playing over and over in my mind as I sip another lassi and consider the two Spice Air attendants at one table and two Japanese tourists at another.

Sunday, 04/01/18