The travelogue, continued

So where were we? Ah, yes, landing at Doha. The city-state of Qatar is floating on a sea of oil. Much like Dubai. It is the perfect jumping point for the whole of Arabia, midway between India and Western Europe, an important Persian Gulf seaport, and so on. Quite naturally, it is the jumping off, and landing point for the many, many people who come to work in Greater Arabia. But, before that, a recap.

I was traveling to Kolkata via Doha because I had missed a flight, and sharing my adventures was a wonderful miscellany of brown people. We shall start off with my friend the unnamed geophysicist. The plane took off from Frankfurt. We had already bonded over dinner, so we found neighbouring seats. Qatar Air, like Emirates has this odd practice - the stewardesses have their headscarves on when the plane is on the ground. But once it reaches cruising altitude, they take the headgear off and you would never know that you were on an airline that is based in the MidEast. (Except that the plane was clean and new, the food was excellent, the service was fabulous, the cabin crew, as jetlagged and jaded as they might have been, smiled at all comers, including the inevitable passenger with the oversized carry-on).

Anyhoo, so my friend, after regaling me with stories of working in the oil biz, decided to get hammered. And get hammered he did. The booze kept coming, and he kept chugging it down. I went from smiling indulgently to being embarrassed for him to finally just praying that he does not puke his guts out.

Thankfully, he didn't, although he expressed his utter contempt for Shahrukh Khan rather vociferously en route to the terminal. I led him off the bus and into arrivals, where we were promptly selected for the "random" entry point security check. Apparently my mojo also works on  transit security in the MidEast. No matter. I steered the drunk oilman into the security line where he promptly refused to part with his shoes an' all, and decided, at that point to launch into his pet tirade about personal freedom and airports. 

I saw a grim faced security wallah rather pointedly snapping on gloves and decided that my own personal freedom was in imminent danger of being unceremoniously curtailed. So I turned to the oilman and hissed "Dilli vapas jana hai? to fir juta utariye". That worked, and a few minutes later I found myself in the midst of a huge stream of brown coloured humanity, being swept into the cavernous arrivals lounge. The chattering flow eventually deposited me in front of the transfer desk, where I turned around to see the rest of my cohort from Frankfurt, all tired and disheveled, several of them with bawling kids in tow.