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…

Happy Holidays (warning: long with extraneous details)

Much like in the US, the holiday season in Yemen involves lots of food and time hanging around the house. Unlike in the US, the electricity often cuts out, which is unfortunate for foreign guests who are supposed to be sitting in front of the TV being entertained while their hosts are cooking (and not wanting said foreign guests underfoot in the kitchen). Because much of the three day holiday that marks the celebration of the end of a month of fasting involves so much cooking, I spent a lot of time obliging my hosts by sitting in front of the TV. Sometimes I would venture into the kitchen, hoping to be useful stirring or chopping something, but usually I got sent out again. Other times the younger siblings who weren’t cooking or hanging out in the streets eating candy would sit in the room with me. Then we would watch Arabic soap operas or music videos on one of the many music channels (while eating candy). During one of these times we actually managed to watch the same video four times in a row on four different channels. I kept thinking it was over and then they’d find it again. Sadly, it is probably my least favorite Nancy Ajram song too…although that might be because I heard it so many times. It was one of her deeper and more emotional videos where she cried a few times and pooched out her plastic lips as much as possible.

The soap operas were more entertaining. My favorite one was about a woman who had married 5 husbands at the same time, thinking that at least 3 of them were dead and that the other divorce had been finalized. She perfected the art of dramatically fainting when coming into contact with what she thought was the ghost of one of her dead husbands. There were also some bad drug dealers involved which seems to be a common plot in Egypt these days judging by the movie I saw on my flight over here which also involved drug dealers and twins separated at birth—one twin was a cop and the other was working for a drug dealer. My favorite part of that movie was the subtitles. The drug dealer convinces the bad twin to run over (translated “dash”) his cop brother and take over his life. Forever after the bad twin feels deep remorse for dashing his brother with the car. Dashing things with cars is definitely a common Middle Eastern problem, so I always look carefully when I’m standing in the middle of the road to make sure that the cars are swerving around me.

Aside from the long hours sitting around and hoping that I could convince my friend to let me come back to Aden early so I could enjoy the wonderful loneliness of an empty apartment, I did have some memorable fun times. I definitely enjoyed eating all the great food prepared for me in the kitchen. Nusaiba promises to teach me to make fuul when we get back to Kharaz because it is mumtaztik, especially with lots of besbas (one of the best words for hot peppers that I have heard in any language). I also loved exploring the old city of Sana’a with its unique gingerbread houses and perfect not-too-cold-not-too-hot weather. Drinking mint lemonade on the roof of a hotel overlooking the city at sunset and getting some exciting news from my sister in a text message was pretty sweet too. I also had some good times just hanging out with my lovely Sudanese family, hearing stories about Sudan, learning how to wrap myself in a thobe, and planning our trip there in November if our UNHCR Sudanese friend has enough wasta to get me a visa.

On the second day of my Eid vacation, we met up with a couple of Nusaiba’s friends. A slightly crazy non-terrorist from Palestine married to a good friend of hers from school. Every time I met one of Nusaiba’s Yemeni friends she would always point out that they were friends even though they’re not both from Sudan. Apparently that was important information for me to hold on to. These friends are going through a rough time in their marriage and in an attempt to not think about it, they road-tripped to Sana’a from Taiz for the weekend in their friend’s car. That was convenient for us because they chauffeured us around to various places we wanted to go. I especially enjoyed Ibrahim’s refreshingly clear Palestinian accent unobstructed by a cheek full of qat leaves. The first night Ibrahim insisted on taking me to Fun City (basically Six Flags over Sana’a with more people and less rides plus somehow separate lines for women and men on certain rides). Only, neither he nor Nusaiba will ride the rides, so I got pushed into riding with Sabah (Ibrahim’s Yemeni wife who is friends with Nusaiba even though she is Sudanese-just pointing that out again for all of you). I don’t mind riding rides, but I hate waiting hours in line which is just as much a part of the Fun City experience as it is in any overly-crowded amusement park in the US. In Yemen, these waits are made even more annoying by virtue of the fact that they are a complete waste of everyone’s time. Not only are the people waiting in line to ride on the rides, but the people on the rides are waiting on the rides for the operators to personally lock each seatbelt and then slowly saunter back over to the operation booth to turn on the ride. After 30-45 minutes of waiting in line while two groups before us each enjoyed a 1 minute ride, we finally made it. We began our 15 minute wait sitting in the horribly uncomfortable seats waiting for the ride to start. Sabah was very nervous about this ride. Maybe it was the fact that a large sign sternly warned all “pregnants” from taking part in this electrical adventure, but she was not pregnant. She said she was more concerned about the part of the ride where we would be sitting upside down 50 feet in the air (or some sort of large distance). I was just glad we had finally made it to the ride, and actually the 15 minute wait came in handy as Ibrahim surreptitiously snapped several thousand pictures of us. He was trying to do it secretly because it’s actually frowned upon/forbidden because of the modest women riding the rides (the ones waiting in the women’s only line) who might be accidently caught in your photo which would then probably make it into some evil American pornography website (maybe Facebook). Haram. But the flash gave him away and an annoyed guard told him several times to stop. Fortunately for my Facebook photo album, Ibrahim is Palestinian and he told me that he would never let a Yemeni tell him what to do.

So we are sitting in the seats and we finally get locked in. And then, amazingly, we began to move. It looks like 45 minutes of waiting is finally going to produce the much-anticipated excitement of flipping upside-down high in the air. As a precaution, knowing that in Yemen Fun has no safety standards, I said a little prayer to Jesus that went something like this: “God, please don’t let me die in Fun City.” And just then, He answered my prayer. The electricity snapped off (remember how I said it had been doing that a lot?). The ride creaked to a stop and our seatbelts popped open. As everyone started to yell and complain and insist on staying in their seats until the electricity came back on and people could ride again, I jumped out and ran to the fence where Nusaiba and Ibrahim were telling me to stay in my seat so no one else could take it. I looked at Ibrahim and said, “What if the electricity had stopped when we were upside down?” He said: “Disaster.” I said, “I’m done here.” Sabah and I went to ride the rides that spin around in circles on the ground. They never did get the upside-down ride back on, so I will never know if anyone died there, but so far that is the nearest to death that I’ve come since being here in Yemen.

Our other trips around Sana’a to KFC at midnight and the old Imam’s house on a rock were also fun and eventful but better seen in the pictures I put up on Facebook. Plus they were slightly marred by Ibrahim and Sabah’s constant bickering and the awkwardness that was that.

So all in all it was a good trip. The magazine in the seat on my flight back listed 5 must-do things in Sana’a, and I was proud to see that I had done them all, including trying aseeda (a disgusting blob of what seemed to be to be uncooked bread dough which is pinched off, squished into a ball, dipped in some weird yoghurt curds and eaten…give me good old plain Sudanese beans any day). Coming home and finding that someone had been allowed to stay in my house (without my knowledge) while I was gone and had eaten all my food and left trash everywhere was slightly annoying, but we worked all that out today. And I am enjoying my solitude in the apartment while Cait and Nusaiba are gone which is actually my idea of a perfect holiday.

Musalsals (TV Shows)

Watching the most popular musalsal in a cafe with other rabid fans while smoking sheesha (after sundown of course)! That is the life!

It's Ramadan which means that there is no shortage of available TV programming for those fasting and the rest of us who are going to hell anyway. During Ramadan, people stay at home with their families (mostly) and the TV is almost constantly on. In the months preceding Ramadan, people are bombarded with advertisements of upcoming shows, much like Americans are bombarded throughout the entire year. Some shows are more popular than others, and some shows make it to "must watch TV" status. The most famous show in the Bilad Al-Sham (the Levant) is most definitely Bab Al-Hara (door of the village/neighborhood). This show follows the lives of people in a small Syrian village during the 1930s when the French occupied Syria and Palestinians were beginning resistance fighting in then-British occupied Palestine. This show includes amazing acting and intense plot-lines. Last year, living with a Jordanian family, I watched nearly every episode. This year I don't get MBC1 on my TV, which has been a great disappointment to me. But everyone has told me that the series was better last year anyway. Last year I developed a special fondness for Moataz, the young man who walked around forcefully with his eyeballs popping out of his head and yelled every one of his lines with a special passion. The big drama was when his dad divorced his mom for arguing with him and saying rude words. Because of that huge disgrace, the daughter's fiance was forced to break up with her even though he didn't want to. He laid around on his bed, refusing food or water and pined away for her until his father relented. Also the blind beggar was not really blind, he was a spy! And at the end of the show (a new episode is shown every day for the entire month) everything ends up great, with everyone getting married off (one guy got 2 girls!) and living happily ever after...until Ramadan next year when new troubles will inevitably plague their little town.

The popularity of this show also paid off big economically. Vendors began selling masks of the characters' faces to little children and making T-shirts of cast photos. Almost every child can boast of a Bab Al-Hara T-shirt or at least a Bab Al-Hara notebook. You know a show has made it big when the actors get put on T-shirts and other paraphernalia, as was the case with another well-known show from Turkey that was dubbed into Syrian Arabic called simply after the name of the main character "Noor".

"Noor" is a very controversial show in the Middle East, mostly because so many women have fallen madly in love with the lead male, Muhannad, a blonde, blue-eyed former model. This was not a Ramadan show so it has been on the air for quite some time already. This show is very complex. Noor and Muhannad are married because their families want them to be. Muhannad just got out of a unhealthy relationship when his fiance fell out of the car window into a valley and died. A tragic accident that millions all over the world can really relate to. But even though Noor and Muhannad start off as a marriage of convenience, two such beautiful people cannot help but fall in love, in spite of the many difficulties that assail them. Both of them go to jail at different times (unjustly of course), Noor is kidnapped by her psycho co-worker, Muhannad's ex turns out to be alive, in a wheelchair with a blonde kid named Muhannad (they meet up accidentally while vacationing at a ski lodge where all people in wheelchairs go for a bit of fun on the slopes). So between marriage troubles where they teeter on the brink of divorce for various reasons at various times and family troubles where members of their family teeter on the brink of divorce for various reasons at various times, their lives are exciting and romantic. Who wouldn't want to be them? They even look good in jail and in comas and while pregnant. They go from flat toned bellies to holding a bouncing baby. If you didn't know they were pregnant from their exceptional acting skills (holding their tummies occasionally and smiling) you would never guess. They are THAT beautiful. I'll put up some photos so you can see why women all over the Middle East are dreaming of leaving their husbands for Muhannad.



Can't you see why any woman would trade in her husband for him? Biting his own hand because even he can't resist how yummy he is!

Here is the happy couple together! It is also an example of the wonders of photoshop as I mentioned in my last literary masterpiece. The only difference between this photo and others I've seen is that sometimes the couple looks happy.

Personally, I like the idea of ending a show after a month. I think that shows in the States last way too long as a way of getting more money and after a few seasons there is nothing really interesting to include in the story so things get crazy or they just repeat themselves. How many people in Alias will we think are dead only to find them resurrected in someone else's body a few months later? How many times will Ross and Rachel break up? Why are there stupid polar bears on the Island? Who thinks up this stuff? There are many things we can learn from the venerated culture of the Arabs, and the art of creating sensational TV is just one of them.