Bombay to Calcutta

Arriving at Bombay.

We were stuck at the transit terminal from the international to the domestic termini. There was apparently a bus every forty minutes. It was sometime around that time that we learnt about the blasts. 7 bombs had been detonated in suburban trains inside a 11 minute span. At least one hundred and fifty deaths had been reported. There were no TV sets in the transit terminus. No bus turned up. There was some indication that a bus would appear in a few minutes, so we legged it to the gate and queued up. My buddy the seaman was insistent upon going out to the city, something I managed to dissuade him from doing. After a while we got irritated; no bus, and apparently no person responsible. Ultimately the bus turned up so late that when we got to the domestic terminus all the restaurants were closed, except for this shady one. I found myself at 3 in the morning sipping coffee and eating a somewhat unhappy looking samosa alone at a table and reading the P D James. And being hideously overcharged for it. Stuff that my socialist soul was writhing in agony at, but then, one has to eat.

Ultimately, I got maybe half an hour of sleep. I ended up wandering around the terminus, looking at the newscasts; all news of the blasts from location. I was mostly too tired for the shock to actually hit me. Anyway, my flight to Kolkata was at 6.50 in the morning. After clearing security, the airline chaps put us into a bus which traveled halfway across the airport to stop in front of a plane, which was the wrong one. We then drove back to a plane parked maybe twenty mts from the gate. the flight was wonderful, so much better service than the international.