DEPARTURE FROM INDIA

S

eeing that Kingfisher Airlines on which I was originally supposed to fly back to Mumbai was now on the verge of shutting down (yesterday it operated only 28 of its 600 flights) I was not going to take any chances so I switched from Kingfisher Airlines to Air India. I even managed to get onto an earlier flight, and I did online check-in to make sure that all will go as smoothly as possible. Ah, well. Let me tell you how things work at Indian airports.

First of all, if you are not traveling, you are not permitted into the airport building. So the many family members who accompanied you to the airport (flying is still considered something rare and romantic in India) will need to bid you farewell outside. Of course, that in turn creates a crush around the doors. But, as in the tuk-tuks, you negotiate your way through the throngs until you arrived at the door. There stands a uniformed officer – either police or military, I never know which seeing as all their uniforms look the same – who examines your passport and ensures that the name on your passport matches the name on your e-ticket. Ahah! You will say, how can he check an e-ticket? That's what the "e" in e-ticket is all about, no? You don't need to carry papers, right? Well, no. In India, an e-ticket must be in paper. In India "e" means paper. Now, the question arises if the officer examining your fine documentation can read English at all. This question remains unanswered. Some can and some can't. But they look at things very officiously, and then return the documents to you. As I said at the beginning, form in India is very important. Substance is of no concern at all.

I arrived and checked in and received my boarding pass for my 5 p.m. flight. Great! Only, the 5 p.m. flight was now a 6 p.m. flight.

"Is there any reason for the change?"

"No sir, it's now a 6 p.m. flight."

"But you have a different flight at 6 p.m., don't you?"

"Yes sir, but this 6 p.m. flight is different to the other 6 p.m. flight. It has a different flight number."

"I see. So the flight number of the 5 p.m. flight is now the flight number of the second 6 p.m. flight. Correct?"

"Yes sir."

"So why was it changed from 5 to 6?"

"Well, sir, there is no aircraft at the moment, sir. There will be one at 6 p.m."

OK, I was now brimming with confidence. Eventually 6 p.m. arrives and the other 6 p.m. flight is called. Splendid! My 6 p.m. flight with the flight number of the 5 p.m. flight is not called.

"When will you be calling the 6 p.m. flight with the number of the 5 p.m. flight?"

"When there is an aircraft, sir."

"And when might that be?"

"When there is an aircraft sir."

"OK, I understand that, but I have an international connection, and I would be of great value to me to know if there will be an aircraft at some future time that will fly me from Delhi to Mumbai so that I can catch my international connection. I will be forever in your debt if you would kindly provide me with that information."

"Soon as we get an aircraft, we will fly it, sir."

Anyway, the aircraft arrived at 6.40 p.m. and was then called so that the 5 p.m. flight could depart 2 hours behind schedule. Normally that wouldn't bother me too much, but being that nothing is predictable, I was not at all sure I would make the connection, because I still had to arrive to Mumbai domestic terminal, collect my luggage and make my way to the international airport.

Luckily for me, El Al had sent a representative to the domestic airport in Mumbai, to accompany me and some others who also had late connections, to the International Airport. Of course, now the internal airport shuttle doesn't arrive, and after waiting half an hour, we decide to take cabs to the other airport. Ah, but getting a cab requires much negotiation among the tens of cab organizers and the hundreds of cab drivers all jostling for honor, clients, money, tips. This cab captain says go in that cab. But that cab driver doesn't want to do luggage. So the other cab captain says take this cab. But that driver only has room for one bag and you have two bags. So he tries to palm you off onto his brother who has a cab with a rack on the roof – and so it goes. Eventually, two of us hauled our bags onto the roof rack, pushed the El Al representative and the driver into the cab and said to him "go!"

The cab drivers are picky about who they take

Now there's Mumbai traffic to deal with – which has only gotten worse since they made the roads passable. There is still construction on elevated highways all over the place (which there was 12 years ago too – I hope these are different elevated highways), and in short (it wasn't) we made it to the airport.

Here too, many relatives accompanying each Indian traveling clog the doorways, sidewalks, roads, and everything is complete pandemonium. There is also a line about a mile long to get into the building seeing as there is a single officer at the door checking the passports of the thousands of people waiting to enter the building. Lest you think I exaggerate, I will concede that there are in fact three doors into the airport, and a mile long line at each one of them, and one person at each door checking the passports and the non-e-tickets. Here is where the El Al representative was worth his weight in gold as he simply rushed us into the line and then along the line and to the guy who could not read the passport nor the paper e-ticket but huffed his approval of our documentation.

And off we were to the El Al counter to go through the screening and check-in. That took all of 5 minutes. Now comes the part where you go through immigration. But to get in to the immigration door you must show your passport and boarding pass to the officer at the door. He then delights in comparing the names on each document to see that they match (I bet he too cannot read a word of English). He then nods his approval and points you to the snake-line where you wait to eventually be processed by the immigration official. The snake line too is endless, because in India, the amount of clerks required to process three thousand passengers, is (drumroll) – four. However once you have actually made it to the immigration clerk's counter, the process at the immigration desk is swift and effective.

But… Then you get into the snake line for security. Here you must take laptops out of your bag. What is a laptop? A laptop is a laptop. A laptop is also a tablet. And a camera is a laptop. Sunglasses too are a laptop. In fact everything in your carry-on is a laptop. So you have to take everything out of your carry-on, except for clothes, and put them in trays to go through the scanner, so that all the laptops can be scanned outside of the carry-on.

Then you walk through the metal detector thingy. Of course you have no metal on you seeing as your wallet with your coins (laptop) and your suspenders (laptop) and ballpoint pen (laptop) have all been scanned separately. So NOTHING beeps. But you are ALWAYS called for a frisking. First they wand you up and down. Then comes the touchy feely part where they feel free to grope you as they please in search for any non-metallic laptop you may not have handed in. Then they stamp your boarding pass, and you are free to continue on your way. The scanner operator and his 27 assistants have by this time also completed the scanning of all your laptops, and have stamped the little tag thingy that you are required to attach to anything that is not you. So your carry-on must have a tag to be stamped, once all your laptops are back inside. And if, like me, you carry your cell phone (laptop) in a pouch attached to your belt, then that too needs a tag and a stamp on the tag.

So now, I am stamped and tagged, all my laptops have been scanned, tagged and stamped, and I arrive to the duty free lounge. I have rupees on me, the famed currency of India, each note bearing the impressive likeness of the even more impressive Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi of blessed memory. But in the duty free store and Mumbai airport you cannot use rupees! Now why would I think that I could use Indian currency in India? I must be using dope or something.

Great! The flight is called. Home is getting nearer. I approach the door and my boarding pass is scanned and I am wished a "Tisa Ne'ima" and off I walk to the sleeve to board the plane, right? Well, no. As I enter the sleeve, an officer stops me to check that all my tags are stamped. Indeed they are. Now I can enter the sleeve, right? Well, no. An officer is there to check that my stamped boarding pass has a name on it that resembles the name in my passport. Humph, it does. OK, I know there is no way I can now enter the sleeve because there are a few more officers waiting in line before the actual entrance to the sleeve. So over the next 5 meters I pass 4 more officers so each one can check a tag, a stamp, a sticker (no-one asked to check for any more laptops) and I eventually made it, relieved at my good fortune, to the door of the aircraft, where I was welcomed. I found my seat, and to my delight it was not the flying torture chamber on which I came to India. Not only that, but I even had a free seat next to me, so I could lean against the window and sleep for 6 of the 7 and a half hour flight home.