Doha: the travelogue continues

So turns out that all these years of staying outside the vatan have made me.. umm.. somewhat racist. Allow me to explain. Frankfurt airport is full of sweaty white people. Most of them don't even speak my language (apart from that one awesome security bloke who turned out to be an old, chainsmoking Trekkie who turned out to be an expat WestCoaster who claimed to be from the Republic of California - go look at the Cali state flag.. but that is a different blogpost). Anyway, I found myself drifting through the swirling palefaced masses in Frankfurt completely unfazed. As if it were my (Gawd-help-us) comfort zone. This is the same me - which would have suffered minor panic attacks if set down in the middle of Dilli. You know what, I would still panic if I found myself in Dilli. So Frankfurt was so very normal to me.  Right down to the hick in front of me who couldn't quite work the Euro system. Said hick was also wearing a stylized Confederate flag shirt, so well... 

But then I ended up at Doha. As you, dear reader, have been following my travelogue with barely concealed impatience, you obviously know of the circumstances which brought me here. In comparison to Frankfurt, this place was alive. Western European airports are marvels of clinical efficiency, throughputting millions of jetlagged people with calm thoroughness. Now what does that put me in mind of? Nevermind, moving on. Doha terminal is this huge agglomeration of sweaty, tired humanity, complete with spilling baggage and squalling children. And somehow, this puts me in mind of Ashtami nights out near Ekdalia (that is a Durga Pujo reference to you Awbangalis). The point, of course being that being up close and personal with your fellow human being, such a basic, not-even-thought-of criteria of survival in our part of the planet, has been largely turned into a memory by the West. Even to me. 

And that was a rather frightening realization.

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.

The Guahati girl and the average Indian bloke

Sometime in late summer 2012, a girl was molested in the heart of Guahati - which is the capital city of the north-east Indian state of Assam. A viddy did the rounds - apparently there was a photojournalist nearby and he captured the entire shameful incident for posterity. Following the ground rules of the society of bloodsucking leeches, he did not stand up for the woman or do anything at all which would require testicular fortitude.

A couple of weeks later, and other news items have displaced this in the public consciousness: the Olympics, the Great Indian Load Shedding (contrary to what you may think, this has nothing to do with our national habit of mass defecation: this merely refers to the rolling blackouts that have plagued North India in late July, ya' know - population, summer, India, power thievery, a superannuated powergrid, yadda, yadda.) But I digress.

So, the Guahati incident. What are the things which we know?

1. Girl molested, video out there.
2. Cops and politicos say that she had been drinking and that she was not properly attired. Observe that such comments are now considered normal when such incidents happen. Such incidents are also quite normal. The video makes this one special.
3. Some people (NGOs?) capture stills of the faces of the offending men from said viddy and put them up all over the city of Guahati.
4. Furore.
5. Some arrests.

There is of course, much regretful shaking of heads and well, that is pretty much it. So let me try to articulate my feelings about this. GENTLEMEN AND LADIES, YA'ALL NEED TO GROW SOME BALLS.

Allow me to explain. Women are not chattel. They are not unpersons. You know what, forget it. This stuff is so basic that everyone should know this. It shames me to think of the many Indian blokes I know who have this deep rooted and sometimes quite well hidden hatred for girls. Eff-ed up, right? I mean, horny bastards on one side, future wife-beaters on the other. And all these fabulous medieval prejudices nicely coiffed up with an MBA (or a PhD, lets not discriminate) from some fancy school.

Takes a lot more guts to look a girl straight in the eye and risk your ego getting shot down. Much better trying to cop a feel as she tries to squeeze past in a crowded bus, amiright? And when its a (slight sloshed) girl dressed with (gasp) some leg showing, then (whee!) its like Diwali, Christmas and a winning lottery ticket rolled into one for our courageous Desi Boyz! C'mon ya'all, titty grabs an' everything - and we don't even have to pretend with flowers and chocolates. For shame, you sods. For shame.

I can't talk much sense into most Indian blokes. They have their heads shoved so very far up their own arseholes that they are deafened by the sound of their stomach gurgles. That is, they are not listening. So let me put this to the (unfortunate) women who will end up marrying my peers. Firstly, commiseration. Secondly, if you are to beget boy children, will you please, please try to bring them up to be decent men? To not be insecure douchetards who get their jollies from hurting women? Please, won't you try?