Coming Home

Returning home.

I packed two changes of clothes and filled up the rest of the suitcase with chocolates and a few boxes of mashed potatoes in powdered form. Don’t ask. On Monday, after packing and repacking my luggage for the 459th time, legged it down to the lab. I got to doing stuff like assigning ten odd peaks and reporting to the bloke I work with. I then wrote tiny blog. Then I went home, listened to Fossils, had lunch and twiddled my thumbs until B turned up. B gave me a lift to the airport. The airport is all of half an hour’s drive away. I had taken prints from Mapquest and Yahoo, which came to a total of ten pages or so. Yes, I know what you are thinking. I had an e-ticket, so I decided to take no chances and get there well in advance. B dropped me off at maybe 3.15 PM. My flight was at 7.10 PM. Check in took all of two and a half minutes. Security check was slightly longer. Maybe ten minutes. The only part when I was slightly flustered was when the bloke told me to take off my shoes. Now my socks are slightly.. shall we say.. disreputable?

Anyway, I found myself in the terminal with a cool three hours to spare. And a PD James novel which had 390 something pages to be read. A simple straight six hours and forty minutes going at normal to slightly high speed. Five hours under high speed. Four under stressed conditions. I sighed, and put the book away. Time to explore the terminal.

Walkways.
The NW world gateway has walkways. These are moving roads meant for two standing side by side which run straight for maybe 70 mts. Really nice and sophisticated. I had some fun getting on those walkways and walking/streaming up and down. This is really smart. Like out of a science fiction book. In fact, totally out of a science fiction book.

The red electric tram.
There was an overhead electric tram between termini. I prefer to use the word termini as opposed to terminals. Terminals is pedestrian. Termini is somewhat more sophisticated. And the tram was red. Until that point, I was not aware of the deep unhappiness in what passes for my soul. This unhappiness was brought about due to the fact that one of my childhood ambitions had never been realized, and I guess, will never be. This ambition was to be a conductor on a big red double decker bus. Anyway, I was tremendously excited at seeing the red tram. I called a friend and told her as much and said that I am going to explore it. It was quite nice. It is entirely automated. The track edge of the platform is guarded by glass windows which have inset doors. The tram slowly lines up with the sliding doors such that suicidal/adventurous people cannot hurl themselves in front of an incoming bogey. This tram has no seats, but then it travels for maybe a few hundred feet.

The long wait.
There was a long wait. I called various people and expressed my views on red trams and other things.

The plane.
Was an Airbus A330. I had an aisle seat which some bloke wanted to exchange with another aisle seat. Aisle seats being much the same, I did; and found myself sitting next to this huge bloke. After figuring out how to use the handheld remote for the little seat mount TV, I started watching V for Vendetta. That movie has Hugo Weaving who gained infinite notoriety as Agent Smith, although I believe his greatest role was as Douglas Jardine (the bloke who invented Bodyline Bowling). Yes, Hugo spouting Shakespearean lines with aplomb while killing people. Neat. I never got through the movie. A combination of me being tired and the stupid remote conking out halfway through the movie. Yes, after a long flight I got to Schipol. There was a short wait for my connecting flight to Bombay. This was a crappy old DC10. These western airlines have a habit of allotting their bad old planes on the Asia side flights. The food was much better though. I was sitting next to this Dutch lady who does something concerned with fillums. As in teaches a course, is involved in distribution. Proper aantel and all that. So we got talking, and to my shock, she had heard of Rituporno, Aparna Sen and hold your breath.. Ritwik Ghatak (the greatest and least known Indian director). I remember once telling someone that international flights which originate or terminate in Calcutta or have Bongs on them will suffer from unusual crowding at the ends of the aisles where a bunch of Bong men will be bonding and complaining over the non smoking rules. Well, I got up to strech my legs, and this random chap asked me if I was a seaman. Turns out that he was a marine engineer and I looked like one myself. I had to tell him that no, I am a mere .. whatever. Anyway, we got to bond over several bottles (those tiny bottles on planes) of wine and by the time we entered Indian airspace, I was feeling no pain whatever. This chap was full of good advice on everything from food to marriage.

Bombay.
The plane came down over the Arabian Sea coast. Bombay at night is like an incredibly rich collection of jewels as seen from the sky. The moment the plane’s wheels hit the tarmac, the whole cabin erupted in cheers, clapping and whistles. My Dutch neighbour told me that this happens every time. Mera Desh Mahan!! I got to Immigration sweating like nothing on earth. Bombay on a sultry July night. Tired, somewhat dishavelle, dirty, unshaven, looking like a tramp I walked up to the Immigration officer with a huge grin on my face. He asked me the standard, ‘how are you today?’ To which I replied ‘AWESOME!!!’. This stopped him. He took one long look and asked me why. I answered, ‘Cos I am home!!’