Feb 2012, Delhi Shining & Kingfisher down but not out

BLR - DEL  by Kingfisher on 13 Feb 2012

It was the 13th of February 2012, a day after my birthday. I woke up at 0600h; stepped out of the front gate and hopped into the easycab at 0645h, post shower, shave, et al., AND a tuck of biscuits; reached BIAL (KIAL as it is known today) in 60; paid 850 for the ride and immediately experienced an early morning hurt wallet syndrome.

The Kingfisher card (it used to work then!) got me a speed check-in, and, after security before boarding, I was left with 15 minutes to spend. The retail outlets screamed P L E A S E with mega-fonted discount signs but I was determined; to seek redemption from the exorbitant taxi fare I parted with in my first transaction of the day. I walked into the KF lounge, a place I don't visit unless I was done strolling or was sleepy, but that morning I was determined!

Inside, there was couscous upma, chicken salad and coffee. Interesting, so I granted myself a 25% pardon for spending the 850 instead of 200 on a red Volvo. Also, Volvo wouldn't have got me my 15 minutes at the lounge I thought. I checked another box and arrived at zero sum. The day was doing ok on the books!

Then, the flight took off on time and that got me to say wow, not bad at all! 

Then came the meal: Ragda patty! 

'What?' I asked the attendant and stared in disbelief as she went about her drill in a cosmetic accent. It sounded like rice-and-lentil pancake with dough ground in a stone pestle & mortar, allowed to ferment overnight in ambient temperature... the bla bla on menu cards that lists regular fare. I wanted to shut her up with when's the airline closing down...but I did not. 

I was sorry, for her and Kingfisher. There were stories about their debt and how salaries were not paid. And I thought just imagine the time she spent this morning donning those layers of make-up, despite no salaries for months. Plus, she has definitely woken up before me this morning, poor thing! 

But that aside - the empathy, sympathy, damsel in distress etc - nothing in the world could convince me to eat ragda patty. Or paw bhaji, or vada paw, this or that paw, dhokla, thepla and the rest of it from the Gujju / Bombay veggie street-food spectrum, except if I were to save my life!

I asked damsel to keep the ragda patty and leave the fudgy chocolate cake on the tray table. And fudgy chocolate cake...wasn't that sinful? It r-e-a-l-l-y was. I thanked my luck for the couscous and chicken salad I ate at the lounge and with this, I had just pieced together (and enjoyed) my free three course breakfast! The next happy event was the two and a half hours of languid, no-commitments-after, siesta. The day just notched up MANY more points on my book.

The flight landed on time and at 1200h in Delhi the taapmaan (temperature) was 18 degrees Celsius. I imagined some Bangaloreans in the aircraft sliding into their jerkins and looked around to see. The fasten-seatbelts-light was on then, but later, I did spot some.

Stepping out of the aero-bridge, into a longish winding and carpeted pathway, through escalators and travelators, one realized, oh so this was the new airport everyone spoke of, particularly those from Daelhi (a casual drop of T3 added gravitas to a conversation, as if it were some new hip word that statusified you, and ensured they know you've been globetrotting).

But I concede, I saw jaws drop. Of those who had not been to DEL in a while, including mine! I mean in the tough-guys-don't-dance sort of way. I began comparing T3 with some slick recent airports I remembered, the world-traveler-critic me. I couldn't help accept that T3 was impressive. It was international, intuitive and easy. BIAL, where I boarded this morning, compared like a mofussil aerodrome from vernacular India.

Even after a myriad security scans, checks, frisks and some not-so-finished public spaces (a hallmark of all new chrome-glass-steel infrastructure Indian), I reached the Metro Express line station...without having to ask ANYONE for directions. This, ladies and gentlemen, was a transformation!

In the past, when I'd land in DEL (or the poorer NDLS), I'd delay starting a conversation with any local, in their guttural localese for as long as I could. I'd speak in monosyllables and only on dire necessity. Just to avoid the bargaining, negotiating and falling for those arguments that always threatened to get violent. And overpowering a lesser mortal, linguistically or otherwise, never felt good, then or later. In the past, Delhi never spared me that stressful opening. This time, just the signage did everything for me. I was gliding along!

And  don't miss this: The metro ticket to Shivaji Stadium was for just Rs.60 and the train took 20 minutes to reach. Soak it again. 20 minutes and 60 bucks to get that far! I stepped out of the station and into an auto in five minutes. Beat that for efficiency! The auto driver was a Sardarji. A smily-faced Sardarji who you'd want to call Happy not just as a cliche. He asked for 50 to Copernicus Marg. I was advised by Augie it would be 30, but Happy smiled and his arms were not akimbo. My defences were down after that lightning ride on the plush metro and the day so far. I said 40, he smiled OK and I almost gave him a high five!

Back in Bangalore later, I surprised myself recounting the things I saw and experienced this time in Delhi. I remembered my first visit there as a young boy with my family in 1977 when we had stayed in Kasturba Gandhi Marg. And saw those beautiful parts of Lutyen's Delhi, saw Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Haridwar, Hrishikesh, Dehradun and Mussoorie. We ate tandoori chicken at Moti Mahal and saw for the first time, large oval dosas being made at Nirula's in CP's outer circle. Delhi was beautiful then and now it has become slick. I love slick. I was prepared to delete the memories of the gazillion angsty trips I had made to that city between 1977 and this last one.

America – from the plane and at the Philly Airport Transit Lounge

My first sight of America from the window of a Boeing 747 was not one the best of the earth below not as pilot, nor as passenger. I thought some not-so-beautiful parts of India look better.  The sky over Pennsylvania was some six octas in grey and the dark green patches in between did not combine so well with the gloominess of grey. I was also very hungry. Flying United for the first time, on a plane with some not so young flight attendants (who seemed to need attending themselves, some older than the ones you saw in Air India), you get the picture!

But just then I decided not to disappoint myself, moving on, and not to draw quick conclusions, and to stop allowing myself to be a critic. Something I saw myself fast becoming after my fortieth (though, some close friends might like to antedate that)! 

I firmed up to becoming patient, to wait and to watch. I watched, but it was only getting plainer! I could now spot clearly ugly and unkempt urban patches that were possibly honest American attempts to being modern, but, as are most things American are, the patches had the least concern for style.  My excitement greyed.  It was not the feeling before landing in a European city (not even if it were the twentieth time).  There, every time I was at this spot, I looked forward to seeing something culturally and aesthetically distinct, sharp, beautiful and enduring; something to capture in the mind and on cameras. But then, Philadelphia was not in Europe, therefore my expectation of it to appear like a manicured Lego-land from the sky was flawed!

Then, suddenly I brightened up on spotting a complex cluster of flyovers, one on top of the other, jumbled like a giant jigsaw of complex arcs. I was fascinated and had seen no other in my travels. I remembered those elaborate toy race car tracks of my childhood that could be assembled and was possessed by boys who had globe-trotting fathers. I also scared myself for a flash, thinking, what if there was an earthquake!

When the undercarriage and flaps came down, my first perspective of America was sharper. In another sense, it was an illusion no more. The plane was landing. I was landing in America, in one of its greatest cities!  And those cars below was real traffic, real stuff that I would be part of in the days to come, not in the same place exactly,  but somewhere similar, for the next 45 days. Pressing my face to the window I looked down and said to myself, this is America! You’ve seen it in the movies...  I braced up, confused and excited, and ran over my after landing check-list.

Between then and my wait at the lounge for my next aircraft, there was nothing significantly exciting. Boring yes, but there were many things to remember - visuals, sounds, tastes and smells to sponge as first impressions - for posterity. 

The wait at immigration was legendary by proportion of boring and irritating. I was tired and anything that added to that not-so-happy state, made me more impatient. I was looking for a place to stretch my legs, and, probably take a short nap.  I had never seen such a long queue before. But, the person at the counter totally reversed it. He was a complete opposite of the experience till then. He was courteous as a legend. 

(And I must make this note, that everyone I met at a POS or any counter from then on, everywhere else in America during that and later trips, were courteous and smart. Professional and quite the opposite of what one sees in Europe).

I then reached a very large place, a mall of sorts, with a humongous food court. It all seemed like it was constructed yesterday. And then I saw some really huge black men. Not some, but many black men and women. I had never seen so many in one place before. Not like those trendy black people one saw in Paris. These were very casually dressed. American! Some wore track pants, many wore sleeveless Ts, some spoke like in the movies and rap videos. And hey, this is not about black alone, there were badly dressed white and coloured men. Then, there were school kids who had baby faces but were built like adults, big and strong, humongous, as the food court. Many looked like they were back from some summer camp. In similar track suits, charging at huge platters of food. 

Man, this is a country of eaters I thought, an unashamed eater myself!