Short Note from Kolkata

I have lost my sense of humor for airplane travels in developing nations. That is what I told myself as I got off the plane today in Kolkata, even knowing that I was going to the fancy pretty new airport there. 

No longer am I amused by having to get on a bus to ride 10 meters/50 feet (not a conversion, merely two examples in two different systems of measurement). I tried once in Yemen to walk around the bus to the plane, and I got yelled at. Now it is one of my greatest joys to be ushered off a plane via ramp directly into an airport, instead of be crammed like a sardine into a bus full of sharp elbows and excess hand baggage.  Today has been full of sardine busses and elbows—sharp ones and pudgy ones.  I was also not amused on the recent flight from Thailand to Delhi to be sitting in front of a man who was convinced that the inflight screens in the back of our seats were touch screens (they were not). He tap-tap-tapped away at the back of my head like a deranged woodpecker for 10 minutes before giving up or having someone inform him of the remote control in his armrest. No longer am I amused by the jerk who puts his seat back as soon as the flight attendant who told him to put it up for takeoff has passed by. Nor do I find it as funny as I once did that as soon as the wheels touch down on the tarmac, half the plane is up, retrieving their baggage from the overhead compartments, ignoring the screams of the distraught flight attendants. I once found it funny that Yemeni men answered their phones from the sky, but now I glare at the Indian man who ignores a call from someone, but leaves his phone on for the rest of the flight. I’m not even amused by the girl with the Miley Cyrus haircut—I’m just annoyed that I know that she has a Miley Cyrus haircut. I’m also annoyed that I had to go through security AGAIN in one of the world’s most annoying systems, getting new tags for my HAND LUGGAGE and waiting in endless lines because there are so many people in every country that I ever live in. WHEN AM I EVER GOING TO GET TO MOVE TO MAURITANIA (or some other mostly desert country with minimal population)?! I am slightly gratified, though, that I managed to keep my tweezers in Guwahati, even though their overly zealous x-ray checkers found them in the x-ray. No where else in India have they ever had a problem with tweezers. This lady scanned my bag twice to find the tweezers, but then couldn’t find them digging through my bag in real life, and I played dumb just to see how far she would take it. She ended up saying, “Well, it’s just tweezers…not scissors, right? Go on.” I took the win. Then I went back to hating the sweet old lady in the sari who was wandering around dazedly in the security check line.

It was going to be a great loss to the world, or at least to myself and whoever reads this blog, that my sense of humor was gone. But then this happened:

 

My sense of humor returned in the form of a cow trying come in the back door of the fancy new Kolkata Airport. I even laughed in the face of a man who was genuinely trying to be helpful by telling me that door was not the way to the domestic terminal. And I still have my tweezers. All is right with the world--until I have to fight my way through the baggage claim in Ranchi...

Heating Elephant

I hate to be cold. People know this about me because I believe that it is important to make a big deal out of things that bother you. That way people aren’t surprised when they offer you a banana and you tell them you can’t eat it because bananas are disgusting in every way, shape, or form---they are ugly, they smell bad, they squish like rotting hard-boiled eggs (something else I hate, rotting or otherwise, because they look and taste like eyeballs and they smell like a fart).  So naturally, because I hate to be cold, I make a big deal out of it, wear all the clothes that I own at the same time, and call the head of the guest house where I am going to stay to make sure I get in a room with hot water. Otherwise, I would not be taking a shower for a week.  Once I arrived at the guest house and was not put in a room with hot water, I texted and called him until the guard showed up at my door holding a water immersion heating device which you can see in the following photo:

 

Yes, this device can melt plastic and yet it is inserted into a plastic bucket of water and plugged into an electrical outlet in the wall. I wonder if a hair-dryer would have the same capabilities if you took off that tag telling you not to turn it on in the bathtub---it’s pretty much the same concept.  The important thing is that it makes the water warm, although I find that my body is conditioned to expect a mandi (bucket bath to the non-Indo folks) to be cold. So I still brace myself before I throw a bucket of water over my head.

Here are some tips for those of you who may someday be in the position to use a ‘water immersion heating device’:

1.     You must hang it over the bucket by something—a stick, a pole. I used one of the metal curtain rods from the extra bed in my room where the mosquito nets hang.  If you don’t hang it, the metal will rest on the plastic bucket and burn a hole through it. Then, as you may know, the water will all leak out and you cannot heat a shower stream with this device.

2.     Don’t expect the device to heat the whole bucket all the way through. It only heats the water immediately surrounding it. So make sure to let that water get as hot as possible, and then mix the rest of the water with the gayung (smaller dipper bucket for the poor people who have never had the great privilege of learning the Indonesian language).

3.     I don’t know this from experience, but I assume that one shouldn’t stick one’s hand into the bucket of water while the device is still on.  This may be somewhat akin to trying to blow-dry your hair while you are still in the bathtub.  Fortunately, the majority of electrical sockets in India can be turned on or off by a switch. I think this is genius because I can leave cords plugged in wherever I want and just switch off the power without having to unplug everything. It especially helps because sometimes the sockets aren’t screwed in so well and they come in and out if you pull on the plugs too vigorously.  But just to be safe, I don’t put my hand in a bucket of water if the water heating device is in the water, even if the outlet is turned off. Because you never know if the switch really works to completely turn off the electricity…

You may have noticed that I shortened “water immersion heating device” to “device.” I know that’s vague and leads one to imagine a more sophisticated piece of technology, but I tried to find another name for the device, even asking the head of the guest house (who showed up minutes after the guard bringing me another device in case I needed two—I guess I made a big enough deal about the issue that it convinced them to make an extra effort for me.).  Still, no one seemed to know. I had a brief moment of excitement when I looked on the box and saw the word “heating elephant” in bold capital letters. It gave me pause as I tried to think of reasons why the device should be named after a pachyderm.  I thought, “It’s long and coiled and that looks like an elephant’s trunk?” But that would mean that a slinky or a bedspring resembles an elephant. As far as I know, elephants do not have any sort of water-heating power aside from an ability to mix large amount of their own fluids with whatever body of water they happen to be sitting in. Then I realized that the name written on the box is indeed “water heating immersion device.” My guess: “heating elephant” = “heating element.” But it is possible that ‘elephant’ is some kind of technical name for some kind of electric thingy that I would have no idea about anyway…

The Single Ladies Package

When I come to Ranchi for work, I usually stay in a church guest house. Ok, until now, I have always stayed in that church guest house. And I don’t mind. It’s rustic, but I know the people and they’re sweet and we speak Hindi together somehow.  I do admit that this last time I was less excited about being there. It was Diwali and the air was filled with fireworks and loud talking, and my windows wouldn’t close, so it was noisy and cold and filled with mosquitos. Fortunately, I am great at rigging up the mosquito netting and I had mosquito repellent sprayed all over my hands and feet (the most likely part of me to get stuck out of the mosquito net at night while I’m sleeping), so that wasn’t the worst. Actually, the worst was that there was no hot water, and it is now cold in Ranchi. So I was thinking about how bad it would look for me not to shower for a week…and then I broke an app on my iPad so I knew that I needed wireless internet to fix it because the point of my having this iPad is to use this app to document stuff in the field, and I’d already made my coworker in the States make me a special form to document this week’s trip. So I asked the head of the guest house and church, a jolly Indian man whom I love, where I can get wireless in Ranchi. I was informed that the Capital Residency Hotel was the only place and I would have to spend the night there. So he packed me up and sent me over.

And here I am and it is a FANCY hotel. I was greeted by 10 people at the door with “Namastes” and “Hello Madams.” They all wore festive uniforms. I was served a special green drink which I hoped was mint lemonade like I used to drink in Yemen. But it was some horrible salty mango juice drink which I could not choke down.

After I checked in, I went to my room, and I had a call on the phone. Here is a transcript of our call.

Reception: You checked in as a single lady. We must give you the single lady package.

Me (having lived too long in the Middle East, thinking that I was going to have to register specially as some kind of unmarried woman without an escort): Um...what?

Reception: The single lady package! We must give to you.

Me (still uncertain and slightly concerned): What is the single lady package?

Reception: We have a bag to give you and we must change your sheets.

Me (thinking that the room looked immaculate and the sheets were very clean and tucked in extra-tight, hotel-style so that it takes all your strength remaining from a hard day of work to rip them back enough to crawl in): What's wrong with my sheets?

Reception: You are a single lady. You must have pink sheets.

Me: Uh...no...I don't need pink sheets. These white sheets are fine.

Reception: No, we will change.

Me: No. I do not need it. I like white.

Reception: What about Single Lady package? Can we bring you the bag?

Me: Sure, whatever. I really need a toothbrush. Can you bring me a toothbrush? (I forgot mine and I'd been using my finger since all the stores were closed because of Diwali).

Reception: Oh Madam, dental kit costs 30 rupees. 

Me: Fine. I need it.

Reception: Can we come and bring Single Lady Package?

Me: OK. Thik hai.

Ten minutes later there is a knock at the door and a lady arrives carrying the dental kit, a receipt for me to sign, and a fancy travel bag full of must-haves for Single Ladies: pads (of course), nail polish, nail polish remover, a thing like a knife which I assume is a fancy nail file, fingernail clippers in the shape of a foot with sparkles on it (I love it), Nivea strawberry lip gloss (I may love this more than the sparkly foot), tweezers, hair ties, hair pins, and a brown eye pencil with the brand "Eastern Girl." Apparently, I am not an Eastern Girl because I tried it and it looked horrible on me. Turns out it's more orangey than brown. Doesn't go well with blue, although I'm thinking there may be some college football team that has that unfortunately color mix (maybe Emily Seymour can fill me in on that). Anyway, being my father's daughter, I love free stuff, and I'll TAKE it.

And besides the cook gift bag and overpriced “Dental Kit,” the wireless internet is working and as I mentioned, I needed it to make this important app on my new fancy ipad work...I needed to make it work because somehow I'd already made it stop working…and I still don’t know how. I’m really not the best candidate for fancy electronic equipment, and I’m kind of amused that Neverthirst has made me “that girl.” You know, the one with a MacBook Pro, iPad, kindle, Zune (yes, I have a Zune because I have middle child syndrome which pushes me to be unique at all times, and I admit that it was a bad decision because I needed a new charger cord and I had to buy it on Amazon because Zune is not being made anymore and so you can’t buy the accessories in stores), and two cameras. And currently, I’m also traveling with a projector. And I have all the cords and a multi-plug extension cord to go with all of them.  So it is a good thing that I am traveling by train this time and not airplane (see my last blog post if you are confused about that).

I have one more day here, and then back to my new home where I’m still trying to settle in and avoid hitting cows with my bicycle. And today when I got back from a successful trip with my fully-functioning iPad, I noticed that my room has been pinked. Yes, it has. The sheets are pink, the towels in my bathroom are pink. There are two new washcloths in my bathroom that weren’t there before and they are both pink. And greatest of all, the towel that I’d left hanging over the back of the chair was turned pink and rolled into the shape of any elephant.

The Single Ladies Package

Single Ladies -- Do not listen to Beyonce’s nonsense about “putting a ring on it.” Come to the Capital Residency Hotel in Ranchi, and enjoy the Single Lady Package.

It's so easy a baby can use it--actually the baby is teaching me how to use it in this photo.

Thoughts on Indian Air Travel

As I sit here in the church guest house in Ranchi, being chewed on by mosquitos, it occurred to me that I haven’t updated the blog in a while. No, this is not surprising, and as usual, I have a million excuses, some of which are actually good. For example: I’m about to move again for the third time in a year, I am doing 2 jobs in addition to the one I signed up for when I came to India, I had to go on a visa-extending trip to Sri Lanka, my internet is not excellent. Some bad excuses may include the following: I don’t feel like being productive when I don’t have to be, my job is really stressful right now and occasionally depressing and no one wants to hear about that, I have too many interesting things popping into my mind and I can’t choose which one to write about, Marian’s blog/s are really good and entertaining and uplifting, so that niche is filled. Also she has cute photos of her kids and, basically, that’s all she needs for a successful blog. Joanna: you should take that into account too. Just pop some more photos of your babies up and voila—you have a blog.

But recently I have had some recurring insights into life in India quirks.  I thought I would share because they amuse me as a foreigner, but no one else here shares that amusement, since I don’t really hang out with foreigners here. Since I have spent the vast majority of my life these past few months traveling, most of my insights are travel-related.  I’m beginning to think that my nephew’s assumption that I live in the airport is not far wrong…

Today as I strode confidently into the airport in Kolkata, I swerved around wide-eyed tourists and chubby old ladies in saris and staked my claim on my space in line to make sure that none of those aforementioned ladies could butt in front of me. It is always the chubby sari-clad ladies who act all innocent like they just want to get close to the sign to see where they are supposed to go and then they will go back to the end of the line. Do not be fooled! Once they’ve wedged themselves in front of you, they won’t go back and then they will take an extra-long time doing whatever you were waiting in line to do because this is the first time in an airport and they have no idea what they are doing. And then when I realize this, it somehow endears them to me again and I forget how annoyed I was before as I kindly show them how to put their bags on the conveyor belt to be scanned…I am an angel…so full of patience…

And speaking of these scanners, Kolkata airport security is very concerned about electric items that might be in your carry-on. Everything that can be connected to an electrical outlet must be removed from the bag. Today, after removing my laptop as I always do, I was stopped and instructed to remove every other electronic item from my bag so that they could re-scan the bag. As a true member of the 21^st century, I had to remove my phone, my kindle, my Zune (OK, I’m not that far in the 21^st century because I got a Zune instead of an ipod, but I mostly did that because I am the middle-child and I have spent my life searching for uniqueness), and an external hard drive. I was then questioned again to make sure that I had NOTHING else with an electric current in it. I showed them the cord to my laptop and they said, “It is electric.” I said, “Not unless it’s plugged into an outlet.” But they ignored me. They proceeded to scan the bag again without the dangerous items. But they didn’t rescan the items themselves. It reminded me of a childhood moment in the Jakarta airport when an over-zealous security guard insisted on looking in my checked suitcase again. He was very concerned about my hairdryer. He looked it over, questioned its use (I also question it—I only use them in the winter to make sure that my hair doesn’t turn into icicles and break off or if I want to make myself feel like I am putting effort into my appearance), and then informed me that I was not allowed to use it on the flight.  Often I have issues with authority and/or people telling me what to do, but in this case I was perfectly willing to acquiesce to his command—since it was in my checked luggage anyway and I have yet to find a way to wash my hair on board an airplane.

Though India and Indonesia may be overly concerned about electronics in bags, India, at least, is very unconcerned about liquids. I could walk through the metal detector with a Big Gulp soda in one hand, and no big deal (that is a thing, right? I was raised in Asia but I feel like I have heard about Big Gulp drinks and I feel like they should be a some kind of testimony to American obesity which we hear about all the time, though let me tell you, I have seen plenty of Indians who have eaten enough chapatis to fill out their saris and sarwals in creative ways)…It is also nice not to have to worry about travel-sized shampoo and toothpaste or nitroglycerin or whatever.

But don’t let India’s lack of concern for the prevention of liquid explosives on airplanes make you think that they aren’t focused on safety and security and being aware of all that is going on around them. Airports are one of the few places where I watch Indian news on tv (since I don’t have a working one in my current house) and I’ve noticed that Indian news is ALWAYS breaking news. I mean, I have yet to see a program that doesn’t have “BREAKING NEWS” scrolling across the top or bottom of the screen (top or bottom of the screen is left to the creativity of the news team, but breaking news is not an option-everything is breaking news). Maybe I’m just not watching tv enough, but I did mention that I spend a lot of time in airports. What is the likelihood that every time I look at the screen it is breaking news and every time I’m not looking at it, it is not? I’m not so great with probabilities, but I’m thinking it’s kind of low.   It does kind of freak me out. I’ve been conditioned to believe that “BREAKING NEWS” signifies some dire event—a huge storm coming my way, an act of terrorism that could/will lead to war in some country that I have probably lived in, an escaped convict on the loose in my neighborhood, the latest contestant to be kicked off American Idol—you know, the BIG things. So I glance up to see “BREAKING NEWS” and I’m thinking, “Crap, I hope my flight doesn’t get canceled.” And then I notice that it’s just some political rally in some random state about some random politician that said something about a food shortage or Hinduism or whatever. No one besides said random politician and enthusiastic nearby onlookers with nothing else to do will be immediately affected. But, I’ve got to hand it to the Indian news media: they make you want to watch the rally for about 10 seconds (9 seconds more than I would have watched if it hadn’t been “BREAKING NEWS”).

My final thought on Indian air travel (I know you’re so excited that I’ve almost finished this lengthy treatise on my life in Indian airports) is regarding an issue that used to bug the crap out of me before I learned to prepare myself for it. It is the showing of the boarding pass to a random otherwise-unemployed person as I get OFF the plane. Yes, I said get OFF. “Why?” you ask. I don’t know. I have been asking myself this same question. Here are several theories:

1.     They want to make sure that I am getting off at the right stop. But if not, will they put me back on the plane until I get to my intended destination?

2.     They want to make sure I wasn’t stowing away in the bathroom the whole time or clinging to the wing, hitching an illegal ride.

3.     They want to make sure that I didn’t switch tickets with someone on the plane during the flight which could result in…some kind of shenanigans?

4.     They want to employ that otherwise unemployed person who is checking my ticket.

Seriously, if anyone on Earth has any idea why they do this, let me know. If they have a good reason, it would greatly help my peace of mind when I get off the plane and have to dig around in my bag, trying to remember where the hell I stuffed that ticket in the mad rush to find my seat and sit in it before I get smacked in the face by someone rushing to get his bag into the overhead compartment. Now that I am prepared for this ridiculous and (in my view) completely unnecessary inspection, I keep the ticket tucked in my kindle or passport for easy access and I swing by the uninformed foreigners digging through their bags with a smug knowing smile.  I wish I could keep it in my pocket, but as I mentioned previously, Indian clothes for women do not have pockets, and the ticket is too big to fit in my bra. Or my bra is too small for the ticket…either way, not an option.

So here I am in Ranchi for a day. I’m back to Kolkata tomorrow, on to Patna on Wednesday, back to Ranchi next week, then back to Patna, then on to Bagdogra, then back to Patna, then to Meghalaya, the back to Patna, and then a ridiculously long flight to the US of A, whereupon landing I do not have to re-show my ticket.

Yes, that is a lot of traveling, but the good news is that JetAirways has a new November magazine out which I can now memorize, since I already finished memorizing the October one…There is never a dull moment in my life…