Like a turd that won't flush, I have returned.
Yes, I'm back in India, and this time, I've got plans.
But first, a few notes about how I got here.
So I knew I had to make another trip out to our Bangalore and Shanghai offices, and I knew I didn't want to do this in the summer when, as far as I could tell, it would be sweltering hot and I would die. I also know that I had to make a trip to Germany in late April, and I knew I dislike long plane rides.
You put all that together and I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to go from Germany to Bangalore, from Bangalore to Shanghai, and in doing so limit the amount of radiation I'd be absorbing this year flying at 40,000 feet back and forth between those locations and home. And to top it off, my wife and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary in Greece and Italy, so why not just tack that on as well, I said?
So I'm away from home for 5 weeks. What could go wrong?
At the risk of dissing Germany, it is boring compared to India and Shanghai. Hey, Shanghai is boring compared to India. In fact, I suspect that I'd find being dumped into a trash compactor in the heart of the death star would be less exciting than India.
But first, one must GET to India from Germany, and for me that meant a plane trip.
Now the company travel policy states that I must choose the cheapest flight option. My own personal policy is in conflict with this, stating that I must choose the cheapest acceptable business class flight so that I won't have to sit hip to hip with the cattle class which everyone knows carry various germs and crying infants. I have found a happy medium here by booking the business class flight and expensing only the amount of the quoted cheapest equivalent flight (the one I would have booked had my meddling policy, well, meddled.)
For me, that was Air India's flight to Bangalore through New Delhi. And for Air India, that meant that I would have a fine ride on one of their "state of the art" Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Let me tell you about that state of the art plane they got there.
As we are taxiing to the runway, picking up speed, there's an ominous "thump, thump, thump" sound and vibration that varies with the airplane's velocity. It's like when you drag your wheelbarrow out of storage and the tire has a nice flattened spot where it settled over the last several months, and ONLY that spot on the tire is flat.
As we go full throttle for takeoff, this thumping gets faster and faster until the front of the plane rises above the tarmac, giving the plan a less-than-pleasant shudder as the wheels retract, still spinning unbalanced.
State of the art technology. Somewhat less state of the art maintenance.
Now, at the risk of calling upon myself criticism and insult, let me point out that it is human nature that we do not learn from history. In fact, one of our more beloved presidents once said:
Someone once defined confidence as "that feeling you have before you understand the situation."
So imagine my surprise when, even though my plan worked perfectly up to the first stage (exiting the plane), it failed utterly in that the fact of my "elite status" of being business class failed to produce my bag as one of the first few to be spewed out onto the carousel. Five minutes go by. Ten. Fifteen.
There's a clock right in front of me and I can feel it laughing at me.
And then, just when I thought all hope was lost, my bag plops out in front of me. I grab it and run. Customs is blessedly quick and then I'm out! I'm free! I'm...
... lost!
I stand there in New Delhi airport, right outside the secure area (no reentry!) looking around in a daze for any sign of where I should go. I really have only two viable options: left or right.
Being conservative, I go left. And about 10 meters later I pause, turn and look behind me, and see a sign that can only be seen from this far down the hall pointing the opposite way for domestic transfers.
The lesson is: always keep looking behind you in justified paranoia.
Well, I am not yet running, but I am speed-walking my suitcase like an old man with a bad hip rushing to the bathroom before he pees himself.
I get to the ticket counter and, amazingly, there is no one in line. This actually worries me. What kind of evil sorcery is this that there would be no line at the airport check-in counter for a flight, unless...
... unless I'm too late.
The lady there asks me where I'm going, and I tell her. The look on her face is a precious combination of pity, disdain, worry and frustrated amazement.
"Ooooh, you don't have much time," she says. I heartily agree.
"You'll need to hurry up," she says. I vigorously concur.
"You'll want to get to the gate quickly," she advises. I violently acknowledge the wisdom of her words.
She puts the newly-printed boarding pass on the counter in front of me and circles a time printed there: 9:15. In fact, she circles it twice. She tells me to put my bag on the conveyer.
I dutifully obey.
And as I do, I notice that the sticky routing tag thingie is on there from my last flight. I am in a rush. She will be delayed, possibly confused, if she sees this, so I decide to help.
I rip that sucker off the suitcase and the woman behind the counter looks at me like I just broke the neck of her favorite rat.
"Ooooooooo! Noooooooo!" she says. I anxiously pay attention.
"That needs to stay on there!" she exclaims. I worriedly believe her.
She tells me to run along and that she'll fix it. As I scurry away in shame, I ponder whether the meaning of her words includes my bag getting to Bangalore on the same plane as me.
So, taking heed of the advice so freely given, I begin to run toward border control. This, too, is wonderfully short of queued people, and I find myself through to the border control dude in a mere 2 minutes. The time is now 9:10.
Usually they close the gate some 10-15 minutes before departure, and I'm already thinking that I should plan contingencies, but what other options do I have but to try?
As the border control guy is moving at glacial speed in examining my passport, visa, face, ticket stub, I begin to sweat. It is a trio of factors: it's hot in the airport. I've been rushing. I'm scared and nervous. Put those together and I'm sure the guy is thinking I'm carrying an exploding vest or plotting some kind of grievous clown-killing crime and the stress is making me sweat and hop from foot to foot.
But he passes me along anyway. I nearly run the 100 feet to security where the line is still short, but moving not at all because the dude sitting in front of the display is looking at his buddy and they are having a wonderfully fun time talking about things not related to getting their job done.
Security takes maybe 5 minutes, but given that the anxiety I'm feeling has reached nuclear levels, and Einstein proved that energy and matter are interchangeable, and Newton concluded that gravity is proportional to the amount of concentrated mass, and Einstein further showed up that arrogant Newtonian noob by proving that time slows down in a gravitational field, it felt like about 2 million years before I got through security.
Now, I have to get to the gate. It is just after 9:10 and the picture in my mind has the circles continuing to multiply, swirling around and around that 9:15 figure on the boarding pass.
And with appropriate reverb, the ghostly recollection of the ticket counter lady continues to scold me: "You'll need to hurry up... you'll need to hurry up..."
And I run.
Now, airports are all specifically designed with precisely the purpose to prevent you from getting to your gate in a timely manner. Of the many tactics utilized to achieve this goal, one of them is to put the duty free shop right on the other side of security, complete with an unavoidable, twisty, winding path full of gawkers who risked all to get thru security only to stop and leave puddles of drool on the slippery floor as they ponder the existential meaning of the concept: one can get a great deal by paying no taxes for incredibly over-priced bottles of liquor, flasks of perfume or boxes of chocolates, none of which stand a snowball's chance in hell to survive a plane trip unscathed.
Maybe you missed the inference, but (a) these airport zombies were in my way, and (b) this #@%@#$ yellow brick road through duty free land was extending my time to the gate by seconds I could no longer afford.
Leaning into each turn like a drunk striving to remain vertical, I dashed through the liquor section. Like a refreshing cool spring breeze, I blew through the perfume section. And like a Jamaican olympic sprinter, I tore through the chocolates. (Not the actual chocolates - the section.)
And having defeated this level, I graduated into level 2.
Bobbing and weaving like an NBA pro, pushing old women, toddlers, eager shoe-shiners and hopeful clowns out of my way, I booked it like a panicked midget running from a gaggle of admirers.
After what seemed like a full marathon, I finally turn a corner and see the looooong terminal hallway with the gate numbers stretching into the distance. From here you can see the curvature of the earth as the hall recedes to the horizon. And my gate number is too far away to see.
Fortunately for me, there are moving walkways.
Let us pause here to consider an airport phenomenon. I contend that the following statement is true and reliable, provable in any part of the world, at any time.
Why do I say this?
This year I decided I would spring for the TSA pre-check program. I paid $88 to join this aristocracy because of all my travel planned for this year. It is supposed to facilitate a faster journey through security and into the land of duty free delights because of its shorter lines and less-strict scanning. However, it seems each time I am in pre-check watching the "privileged class" in front of me go through they are somehow reduced to baffled sheep being herded through the process with no ability to think about what is going on
"Everything out of your pockets?" they are asked, to which they nod or say yes.
Then they are rejected by the scanner and found to be carrying large key rings, battery packs, swiss army knives - you get the idea. One guy had a large smartphone with what looked like 2 miles of cabling wrapped around it jammed in his pocket. Some of these dolts get rejected multiple times, and each time they are sent back their faces betray their shock and surprise that the lighter they are carrying in the other pocket did not pass without detection. The people being held up by this idiot mock and shake their heads in scorn, and then repeat the blunder without a hint of shame.
It would be nice if it ended there. But no.
So here I am, sprinting through the New Delhi Airport. I finally get to the looooong corridor of the gates as I mentioned above, and I am (a) relieved to see that they have moving walkways as far as the eye can see which would make me seem to run like The Flash, and (b) severely dismayed by the log-jam of people on these things standing and enjoying the thrill of the wind not able to blow thru their hair due to their slower-than-I-walk-when-I'm-tired-and-just-had-my-foot-gnawed-off-by-a-ferret thrill ride. I can see them thrill to the scene of a sweaty, out of shape American with a huge backpack bouncing on his back stumble-running alongside them at what must have seemed to them so fast that the light was blue-shifted as I approached and red-shifted as I receded.
By the time I get to the gate it is 9:16 and there are no people left lined up to board, although I can see the end of the line of people heading to the plane on the other side of the glass wall separating the tardy from the punctual.
My throat is so dry from heaving that I could have quenched my thirst with a glass of sand. My lips are sticky and have those bits of congealed spit that stretch into disturbing webs between the lips as I try and mouth the words, questioning whether I am too late. My glasses won't stay on the bridge of my nose because that nose is lubricated with sweat slippery enough to apply for a patent for an organic alternative to WD-40.
The guy who checks the tickets looks at me with a bemused smile and asks for my ticket. For reasons that defy physics, it is not sopping wet with my sweat, unlike my shirt, pants and under bits. He scans it and passes me through.
I am sooooooo relieved. I made it. I endured the test. I finished the race. My reward is due.
And as I walk down the gangway toward the plane, I look down at my ticket to admire how dry it is. And it is then that I notice something.
My ticket tells me that estimated boarding time is 9:15. Departure is not scheduled until 9:45.
And with that, I find my seat on the plane, sit on the nice soon-to-be-not-so-dry seat, turn the little air thruster thingie to full blast, and wait the wait of the shamed.
Three hours later I am in Bangalore, walking out of the airport, WITH my bag, looking for a legitimate cab. Three hours of airplane air has dried my shirt, most of my pants and left my underwear feeling suspicious but I walk with the confidence of a man who has succeeded in arriving safely with his bag, not at all worried that there might be a darker shade of blue on the seat of my jeans leaving people to speculate about how much my butt must sweat more than the rest of my body.
Yes, I'm back in India, and this time, I've got plans.
 |
| ...and my plans are also not in the main computer. |
But first, a few notes about how I got here.
So I knew I had to make another trip out to our Bangalore and Shanghai offices, and I knew I didn't want to do this in the summer when, as far as I could tell, it would be sweltering hot and I would die. I also know that I had to make a trip to Germany in late April, and I knew I dislike long plane rides.
You put all that together and I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to go from Germany to Bangalore, from Bangalore to Shanghai, and in doing so limit the amount of radiation I'd be absorbing this year flying at 40,000 feet back and forth between those locations and home. And to top it off, my wife and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary in Greece and Italy, so why not just tack that on as well, I said?
So I'm away from home for 5 weeks. What could go wrong?
 |
| Oh yes. THAT. (From the last India visit.) |
At the risk of dissing Germany, it is boring compared to India and Shanghai. Hey, Shanghai is boring compared to India. In fact, I suspect that I'd find being dumped into a trash compactor in the heart of the death star would be less exciting than India.
But first, one must GET to India from Germany, and for me that meant a plane trip.
Now the company travel policy states that I must choose the cheapest flight option. My own personal policy is in conflict with this, stating that I must choose the cheapest acceptable business class flight so that I won't have to sit hip to hip with the cattle class which everyone knows carry various germs and crying infants. I have found a happy medium here by booking the business class flight and expensing only the amount of the quoted cheapest equivalent flight (the one I would have booked had my meddling policy, well, meddled.)
For me, that was Air India's flight to Bangalore through New Delhi. And for Air India, that meant that I would have a fine ride on one of their "state of the art" Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Let me tell you about that state of the art plane they got there.
 |
| I admit it was a little better than this contraption. |
As we go full throttle for takeoff, this thumping gets faster and faster until the front of the plane rises above the tarmac, giving the plan a less-than-pleasant shudder as the wheels retract, still spinning unbalanced.
State of the art technology. Somewhat less state of the art maintenance.
 |
| Worry is a choice. |
Now, at the risk of calling upon myself criticism and insult, let me point out that it is human nature that we do not learn from history. In fact, one of our more beloved presidents once said:
There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me... you can't get fooled again."So for those just joining us, when I last went through Delhi Airport, I was forced to "exit" the secure area and check back in like a noobie just arriving too late for his flight as part of my connection, forcing upon me a very stressful, sweaty but calorie-burning sprint through the airport. So this time I carefully considered that my entry into India was likely to incur the same anti-immigration policy of hardship and attrition, and, calling upon my vast resources of wisdom and intellect, I decided that a layover of 1.5 hours would surely be sufficient to accomplish the trivial tasks of deplaning, getting my luggage, going through customs and border control, checking in at the ticket desk, going through border control again, then security, then finding the gate, which undoubtedly would be among the first few that are near the beginning of the airport terminal maze.
Someone once defined confidence as "that feeling you have before you understand the situation."
So imagine my surprise when, even though my plan worked perfectly up to the first stage (exiting the plane), it failed utterly in that the fact of my "elite status" of being business class failed to produce my bag as one of the first few to be spewed out onto the carousel. Five minutes go by. Ten. Fifteen.
There's a clock right in front of me and I can feel it laughing at me.
And then, just when I thought all hope was lost, my bag plops out in front of me. I grab it and run. Customs is blessedly quick and then I'm out! I'm free! I'm...
... lost!
I stand there in New Delhi airport, right outside the secure area (no reentry!) looking around in a daze for any sign of where I should go. I really have only two viable options: left or right.
 |
| It's hard to be a decider. |
The lesson is: always keep looking behind you in justified paranoia.
Well, I am not yet running, but I am speed-walking my suitcase like an old man with a bad hip rushing to the bathroom before he pees himself.
I get to the ticket counter and, amazingly, there is no one in line. This actually worries me. What kind of evil sorcery is this that there would be no line at the airport check-in counter for a flight, unless...
... unless I'm too late.
The lady there asks me where I'm going, and I tell her. The look on her face is a precious combination of pity, disdain, worry and frustrated amazement.
"Ooooh, you don't have much time," she says. I heartily agree.
"You'll need to hurry up," she says. I vigorously concur.
"You'll want to get to the gate quickly," she advises. I violently acknowledge the wisdom of her words.
She puts the newly-printed boarding pass on the counter in front of me and circles a time printed there: 9:15. In fact, she circles it twice. She tells me to put my bag on the conveyer.
I dutifully obey.
And as I do, I notice that the sticky routing tag thingie is on there from my last flight. I am in a rush. She will be delayed, possibly confused, if she sees this, so I decide to help.
 |
| Just ask my wife. |
"Ooooooooo! Noooooooo!" she says. I anxiously pay attention.
"That needs to stay on there!" she exclaims. I worriedly believe her.
She tells me to run along and that she'll fix it. As I scurry away in shame, I ponder whether the meaning of her words includes my bag getting to Bangalore on the same plane as me.
So, taking heed of the advice so freely given, I begin to run toward border control. This, too, is wonderfully short of queued people, and I find myself through to the border control dude in a mere 2 minutes. The time is now 9:10.
Usually they close the gate some 10-15 minutes before departure, and I'm already thinking that I should plan contingencies, but what other options do I have but to try?
As the border control guy is moving at glacial speed in examining my passport, visa, face, ticket stub, I begin to sweat. It is a trio of factors: it's hot in the airport. I've been rushing. I'm scared and nervous. Put those together and I'm sure the guy is thinking I'm carrying an exploding vest or plotting some kind of grievous clown-killing crime and the stress is making me sweat and hop from foot to foot.
But he passes me along anyway. I nearly run the 100 feet to security where the line is still short, but moving not at all because the dude sitting in front of the display is looking at his buddy and they are having a wonderfully fun time talking about things not related to getting their job done.
 |
| Like sands through the hourglass, so are the drops of worried sweat falling from my brow. |
Now, I have to get to the gate. It is just after 9:10 and the picture in my mind has the circles continuing to multiply, swirling around and around that 9:15 figure on the boarding pass.
And with appropriate reverb, the ghostly recollection of the ticket counter lady continues to scold me: "You'll need to hurry up... you'll need to hurry up..."
And I run.
Now, airports are all specifically designed with precisely the purpose to prevent you from getting to your gate in a timely manner. Of the many tactics utilized to achieve this goal, one of them is to put the duty free shop right on the other side of security, complete with an unavoidable, twisty, winding path full of gawkers who risked all to get thru security only to stop and leave puddles of drool on the slippery floor as they ponder the existential meaning of the concept: one can get a great deal by paying no taxes for incredibly over-priced bottles of liquor, flasks of perfume or boxes of chocolates, none of which stand a snowball's chance in hell to survive a plane trip unscathed.
Maybe you missed the inference, but (a) these airport zombies were in my way, and (b) this #@%@#$ yellow brick road through duty free land was extending my time to the gate by seconds I could no longer afford.
Leaning into each turn like a drunk striving to remain vertical, I dashed through the liquor section. Like a refreshing cool spring breeze, I blew through the perfume section. And like a Jamaican olympic sprinter, I tore through the chocolates. (Not the actual chocolates - the section.)
And having defeated this level, I graduated into level 2.
 |
| Actual photo from security surveillance of my run to the gate. |
After what seemed like a full marathon, I finally turn a corner and see the looooong terminal hallway with the gate numbers stretching into the distance. From here you can see the curvature of the earth as the hall recedes to the horizon. And my gate number is too far away to see.
Fortunately for me, there are moving walkways.
Let us pause here to consider an airport phenomenon. I contend that the following statement is true and reliable, provable in any part of the world, at any time.
Along with bottles of water, nail clippers, scissors, fireworks and semi-automatic rifles, people also throw out their brains as they are going through airport security.
Why do I say this?
This year I decided I would spring for the TSA pre-check program. I paid $88 to join this aristocracy because of all my travel planned for this year. It is supposed to facilitate a faster journey through security and into the land of duty free delights because of its shorter lines and less-strict scanning. However, it seems each time I am in pre-check watching the "privileged class" in front of me go through they are somehow reduced to baffled sheep being herded through the process with no ability to think about what is going on
"Everything out of your pockets?" they are asked, to which they nod or say yes.
Then they are rejected by the scanner and found to be carrying large key rings, battery packs, swiss army knives - you get the idea. One guy had a large smartphone with what looked like 2 miles of cabling wrapped around it jammed in his pocket. Some of these dolts get rejected multiple times, and each time they are sent back their faces betray their shock and surprise that the lighter they are carrying in the other pocket did not pass without detection. The people being held up by this idiot mock and shake their heads in scorn, and then repeat the blunder without a hint of shame.
It would be nice if it ended there. But no.
So here I am, sprinting through the New Delhi Airport. I finally get to the looooong corridor of the gates as I mentioned above, and I am (a) relieved to see that they have moving walkways as far as the eye can see which would make me seem to run like The Flash, and (b) severely dismayed by the log-jam of people on these things standing and enjoying the thrill of the wind not able to blow thru their hair due to their slower-than-I-walk-when-I'm-tired-and-just-had-my-foot-gnawed-off-by-a-ferret thrill ride. I can see them thrill to the scene of a sweaty, out of shape American with a huge backpack bouncing on his back stumble-running alongside them at what must have seemed to them so fast that the light was blue-shifted as I approached and red-shifted as I receded.
By the time I get to the gate it is 9:16 and there are no people left lined up to board, although I can see the end of the line of people heading to the plane on the other side of the glass wall separating the tardy from the punctual.
My throat is so dry from heaving that I could have quenched my thirst with a glass of sand. My lips are sticky and have those bits of congealed spit that stretch into disturbing webs between the lips as I try and mouth the words, questioning whether I am too late. My glasses won't stay on the bridge of my nose because that nose is lubricated with sweat slippery enough to apply for a patent for an organic alternative to WD-40.
The guy who checks the tickets looks at me with a bemused smile and asks for my ticket. For reasons that defy physics, it is not sopping wet with my sweat, unlike my shirt, pants and under bits. He scans it and passes me through.
I am sooooooo relieved. I made it. I endured the test. I finished the race. My reward is due.
And as I walk down the gangway toward the plane, I look down at my ticket to admire how dry it is. And it is then that I notice something.
My ticket tells me that estimated boarding time is 9:15. Departure is not scheduled until 9:45.
And with that, I find my seat on the plane, sit on the nice soon-to-be-not-so-dry seat, turn the little air thruster thingie to full blast, and wait the wait of the shamed.
Three hours later I am in Bangalore, walking out of the airport, WITH my bag, looking for a legitimate cab. Three hours of airplane air has dried my shirt, most of my pants and left my underwear feeling suspicious but I walk with the confidence of a man who has succeeded in arriving safely with his bag, not at all worried that there might be a darker shade of blue on the seat of my jeans leaving people to speculate about how much my butt must sweat more than the rest of my body.
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