Adieu Delhi

Paharganj was almost charming after the gritty chaos of Chennai, except for the evening of my return. 

The Sunday night before the Holi festival was so jam packed along Nehru Bazaar that there was no room for a bee to lift a cheek to fart. Normally Delhi taxi drivers are unflappable - a good trait when you find when you find yourself swerving to fit between a cow and a bus barrelling down the wrong side of the road. Tonight my driver was rattled. We were pinned in a throng of humans, tuk tuks, cycle rickshaws, bullocks and other cars and no one could move and everyone was honking. Bodies were pressed up against the cab and pounding on the windows and closing his side mirrors. We got caught on the propane tank attached to the side of a bicycle and there was yelling and renewed window pounding. By the time we made it to the Grand Uddhav, he was sweating bullets.

The next morning was much quieter, for Paharganj. People were buying colours and water guns, bullocks were pulling wagons of grains for feasts. It was my last day before flying out in the evening and I wasn’t feeling very energetic. I took a wander over to Connaught Place and mainly hung out with A at his spice shop. Indians would wander over and talk to me in rapid Hindi and N would giggle and explain that I’m not Indian. Tourists would come about spices and ask if I was A’s wife, which got him started telling all the tourists that I was his sister. “Oh, of course” they would nod, as if that made any sense. An Israeli couple did mention that we didn’t look a lot alike. No kidding, but the sister story seemed to make A happy, so why not?

I took off for a late lunch of thukpa and momos and decided I would get myself a mehndi downstairs. I tried to get a quote but it was based on the quality of henna and the length of the design. I tried to dictate the length but he was an artiste and needed to not be hemmed in. What the heck, I didn’t need my rupees for anything more so I let him go. As he decorated from the end of my index finger all the way down my forearm, he told me all about the shop (mainly a busy tattoo parlour) and asked about life in Canada. Fortunately he was a good chatter because I then had to sit and wait until it dried. Part way through the drying he learned that I was not 35 as he had assumed (Bless!) and that I was unmarried. This confused him and he had a lot of questions about how I could survive. I attempted to explain this was why I wasn’t prematurely aged. He decided to give me a freebie on the other hand as a blessing to get me through what must be a difficult life, which re-started my drying time. He sent a boy to bring me chai and I showed him the magic of Canadian plastic currency, which he found so pretty I thought he might cry. He eventually scraped the dried henna off my $20 CDN design and we exchanged a Canadian coin for an Indian rupee coin as keepsakes and he threw in a non-monetary temple coin from a temple in Kashmir as an additional blessing.

It was back to the hotel to pack to satisfy both Indian and Air Canada security concerns, a quick inedible dinner of the worst pakoras ever encountered (soggy potato and hot green chilis were my mixed pakoras). I can now say I have had the best and the worst pakoras in India. Said goodbye to A & N and headed to the airport 3 hours early.

As I got out of my airport cab, I looked in my wallet and realized I had made a mistake. 50 INR bills weren’t red, $50 CDN bills were red. I had tipped the hotel guys who put my bags in the car $50 EACH! They had better remember me if I ever return!

Inside the airport it looked all calm and organized but, as soon as I was in line for Air Canada, I couldn’t help noticing that anyone who had a pile of luggage taller than themselves was whisked to the front of the line. There I was with one carry on and one checked and I wasn’t moving up, in fact I seemed to be moving backwards. Some complaints from people closer to the front got the luggage hoarders their own fast lane, while the rest of us waited. It took close to an hour just to get a boarding pass and check my bag. Then it was off to immigration hall!

Immigration hall has a number of entrances and some of them were temporarily closed due to the number of people. It’s difficult to overstate the number of people who go through this airport and the uncaring, inefficient bureaucracy that makes it all slow as molasses. There were hundreds of people in the snake line I entered (one of 5) and only 2 officials reviewing the documents. One person who came in said their plane was boarding soon and asked the woman at the door how long it would take to get through. They were told 15 minutes. Those of us who had been there over 15 minutes and were only a fifth of the way through turned around and shook our heads at them. Sometimes someone would panic about their flight time and others would let them squeeze ahead. It took me over an hour to get my departure stamped in my passport and then I still had security.

Women’s security is separate in India and at this airport they have 1 women’s line for every 2 men’s so it takes much longer for women to go through. I let some panicking tourists and some senior ladies skip ahead of me, knowing it’s still a crazy long trek to get to the gates. I finally made it to the scan and then went back to look for my trays of belongings. Everything was set aside. Of course it was. I had to explain every single thing in my personal and carry on bag for someone who didn’t even seem to be listening. It was just a thing that had to be done.

Then it was a sprint to the very end of the airport. Fortunately, my flight was delayed so I made it in time for boarding. I’m sure my lovely seat mates appreciated the added eau de flopsweat. The flight itself was fine and the people I met on board were charming. We were in a Dreamliner that had higher than usual oxygenation but made me feel as though I were in a food dehydrator. I came off in Montreal feeling like a little dried fruit.

I nominate Air Canada as the surliest airline. The Delhi to Montreal crew were fine, but in Montreal I got the sense they were experiencing a strong disdain for humankind. We had to request the gate person of the Ottawa flight take the man in the wheelchair to the plane and he gave us all a look of deepest loathing before doing so. The woman giving the safety demonstration looks like she would really rather be anywhere else. Passengers are ignoring her as if they don’t care whether they survive and she looks as though she rather hopes none of us do. Happy travels with Air Canada! Don’t come back, fuckers.