INDIA

I was coming back to India for the 19th time, but after a hiatus of 12 years, and I was not quite sure what type of India I would find. Over the years that I traveled here regularly, I grew to love India, specially its people, who seemed to have an attitude of "there is always room for one more." I found the people in India to be patient and tolerant. I wondered what I would find this time. Had India changed in my absence? I remember when on one of my trips it was announced that India's population had passed the 1 billion mark. Now India's population stands at about 1.2 billion – that's a 20% increase in 12 years! Also, I would be visiting places that I had not been to before. How would they compare to the other places with which I was already familiar? I often say that there are many Indias, and one place can be the complete opposite to another. In fact, one place can be the complete opposite to the place across the street. Thus it is in India – a land of many contrasts.

Let me start with the flight to India. I will say that the aircraft had seats. Lots of them! All crammed into an aircraft that's WAY too small to hold so many of them. I mean, I'm not a tall person by any measurement. If I cannot fit my thigh into the space between the armrest and the seat in front of me in order to get into my seat, something is horribly wrong with the way this aircraft is designed. Unless, of course, this particular aircraft was specially designed for people with no legs. I pitied the tall men on the flight, who spent most of the time standing in the aisles - even though they had aisle seats to start with. This had to be the most uncomfortable aircraft I have ever flown in, including the little 3-seater sea plane on which I flew from Vancouver to one of the islands nearby. As far as I am concerned, this is a new low in flying and El Al has definitely and successfully captured this niche market!

Now let me tell you about arriving back in India after an absence of 12 years. Mumbai's international airport seems to be in the process of adding a terminal. Either that or they have added a new terminal to the old building that I remember. We parked at the old building and it's pretty much the same - old, decrepit and not very efficient. But it smells the same! It's a short walk from the plane to passport control which is as inefficient as it always was. Long lines of passengers being processed by too few clerks, while lots of people are employed to make sure the lines are correctly perpendicular to the yellow line when needed and parallel to the yellow line when needed. Lots and lots of people attend to appearance, while far too few attend to substance. So, from that point of view, India is much the same as when I was last here.

The big improvement is in the transfer from the international airport to the domestic airport. Both airports share the same runways, but they are located at opposite ends of the airport. In the old days, we would clear immigration and customs, and then hop a taxi for the 45-90 minute ride around the airport through the morning traffic to the domestic airport. Now, there's a shuttle bus that takes you INSIDE the airport perimeter from the international terminals to the domestic ones. Something like they have at London's Heathrow airport.

So the process works thus: You clear immigration and pick up your bags. This part is actually very efficient, but results in chaos. What they have here are porters who wait alongside the conveyor belts and take the suitcases off the belt and line them up in multiple lines. Of course you cannot get your trolley through the multiple lines of suitcases, so instead of taking your bag off the conveyor and putting it on you trolley, you now have to park your trolley a distance away, go and climb over the lines of suitcase to get your bag, climb back over while holding your bag in the air, and the eventually plunking it on your trolley. In Japan there are also porters to take your bag off the conveyor. What they do there (with white gloves on their hands) is take your bag off the conveyor and put it onto your trolley for you, many then bow. Here, it seems, the main aim is to keep the folks employed. The intentions good, but the result is chaotic. 

So now you have your bag and you clear customs, change some money and then follow the sign that says Domestic Transfers. You are in a sterile area, but you need to have your suitcase scanned before your exit the sterile area and onto the bus. Whatever. Employment is the key. Three men then wait to put your bag onto the bus, all expecting tips - and asking for them. I suspect that here too, as in many places in the East, foreigners are looked upon as walking wallets. 

Once you arrive at the domestic terminal, you are dropped at Arrivals, and must make your way through and out and up to Departures. Everywhere, it's crowded. Now, I know to expect that because India has a huge population, in excess of a billion people, and like China, it's always crowded. And there's no such thing as personal space. You can consider yourself fortunate if the person in line behind isn't actually touching you.

After I checked in at Mumbai domestic I wandered about the place. It's very different than it was 12 years ago. This is a new terminal, very modern and very nice. I had a diet Pepsi and then went to security for screening and to the gate. When it came time to board, they asked to see the stamped tag for my little satchel that I am carrying. They hadn't given me one when I went through screening, so they sent me back with a ground staff person for my bag to go through security again and to get a tag and a stamp on the tag. I then remembered that stamps are very important – in India, a uniformed man with a stamp is a figure of authority. So now with my bag tagged and stamped I went back to the boarding gate, hopped on the bus and was the last person to board. 

The flight was uneventful - but full. It's a 2 hour flight from Mumbai to Delhi. We met with our Indian counterparts till about 9 p.m., and then we all went out for dinner to a high end pure vegetarian place. It was so nice that there and then we decided that this would be a place to where we will bring the group for a meal. The manager was very nice and accommodating and was willing to set aside a special table for our group. I also met with the chef and checked out the ingredients in the kitchen and decided upon what would be acceptable for our clients to have.

Then it was transfer to the hotel for a well deserved night's rest. I was already so exhausted having had such an uncomfortable flight from Tel Aviv that I simply flopped into bed and went to sleep.

A word about this city: first of all it is huge with a population of 22 million residents. It's also typical of India in that it's full of contrasts. For example, the restaurant where we ate last night was in a fancy mall. Across the street there's a slum of tin shanties. Beggars mix among the Jaguars and Mercedes. One street will be beautifully lined with gardens and the next one won't even have a sidewalk. And of course the traffic - unlike Bangkok - moves at a pace that defies logic. Cars and trucks and busses and taxis and rickshaws (motorized ones - the Indian equivalent of the Thai tuk-tuk) and motor bikes and scooters all jostling and honking but never actually touching one another as they negotiate the streets and lanes. Signs are recommendations only. For example, our driver took us out of the hotel grounds, and just beneath the no U-turn sign, he made his U-turn.

The day started with a visit to the first and last hotels in which the group I am accompanying will be staying. OMG! This takes opulence to a new level. In fact, I felt rather uncomfortable there, it was so posh. The manager came to greet us; the executive chef came to greet us, etc. etc. They have proven to be very, very accommodating to our needs. The chef took me on a tour of the kitchens and the stores, we examined ingredients and supplies. They have allocated us a special kitchen and our own banquet room for our breakfasts here (we are only having 2 breakfasts in the hotel and they are going so out of their way to please). After the meeting in hotel #1, the Taj Palace (and it sure lives up to its name) we went over to the hotel where we will be spending the last 3 nights.   

Well, if #1 was OMG posh, the only adjective I can use for this hotel, the Taj Mahal Hotel, is absolute splendor - incredibly beautiful in all things down to the smallest detail. And of course in all the hotels there are so many staff people! Having a population of 1.2 billion, India has probably as many working hands almost as China. So it's seems like that for every guest there are at least 4 staff people. They are all very polite, smiling, willing to help. I assume that behind much of it there is also the expectation of reward, but that is to be expected.

After our second very successful meeting, were taken us to a market to buy disposable things that we may need along the way to prepare packed lunches at a suitable level of service. After that we went to another pure veg place for lunch. The restaurant is attached to a pure veg sweet factory which they also took us to see behind the scenes. Fascinating! They produce the most intricate and amazing stuff without any gelatin whatsoever. It's all herbal and vegan. Incredible!

Then it was back to the hotel seeing as it was already an hour or so before Shabbat. So we rushed upstairs, showered and changed and met downstairs with 100 rupees in my pocket and the three of us crowded into a tuk tuk and whizzed off to the Central Market near the main railway station to find Chabad. The market is a series of alleyways and side streets, resembling Khaosan Road in Bangkok but far, far poorer looking, significantly dirtier and much more crowded, and we had general directions of where to go. Eventually the two things that were destined to happen, indeed happened - we met some Israelis who directed us further and then met the local Chabad shaliach who brought us into the building. Now that I think of it, it's much more like a dirty version of the shuk in the old city of Nablus than like Khaosan Road oin Bangkok.

Any of the Batei Chabad in Thailand is a palace in comparison to this place. But as was to be expected there we some Israelis there, a non-dati group that came for Kabbalah Shabbat and kiddush but didn't stay for supper, a small group of backpackers, two couples who were traveling each couple alone (for one couple this was their 4th time in India), a businessman and the three of us. Anyway, it was the usual Chabad hospitality, though nowhere near as lavish as in Thailand, with lots of singing and divrei Torah, most of it about the rebbe being mashiach, but all in good spirits and lovely. I intend to write about Chabad in general separately. After dinner we walked back to the hotel, about 25 minutes, past the beggars and the street people, the punks and the hip young folk coming out of discos and nightclubs, and arrived and went to bed.

The next day, Shabbat, was quiet. Got up leisurely, had coffee and cereal and then we walked to shul. Last night, on the way back to the hotel, we passed a man who had created a work of art in charcoal on the sidewalk, and had placed candles in strategic places so that the artwork looked like a religious symbol of some sort. On Shabbat morning as we walked by again in the opposite direction, we noticed that someone had brought a body out to the sidewalk and placed it at the head of this artwork (the body wasn't there when we walked back after lunch).

Other than that it was quiet. Had a good shloff after lunch (and as a result had difficulty falling asleep last night), and after havdala I did some preparation work and then went down to the coffee shop to call you guys back home. This is our last night at this hotel and tomorrow we move over to the Taj Palace seeing as guests start arriving already during the night.

Sunday was pretty much a regular work day. After breakfast I packed up and we moved over to the Taj Palace, which, as I wrote the other day, is exactly as palatial as it sounds. I understand from the local gossip that the Israeli Embassy keeps some rooms here, or that all official guests stay here because the hotel has huge grounds around it and no buildings close by, so it's easy to protect.

Actually, the security around hotels looks rather impressive. Every time a car enters the hotel grounds it is stopped at the gate, mirrors are rolled under the car to check for whatever suspicious things might be there, the trunk is opened and the hood is lifted, and in some cases a dog is brought to sniff around as well.   

This hotel also has a fleet of cars and chauffeurs ranging from Jaguars and Mercedes to jeeps, vans and Toyotas, to schlepp their guests. And everyone is so very polite and willing to help!

I met again with the executive chef, the head of food and beverage, the head of catering services, the chief butler (!) and the head of guest services - all at their request (!) to see how best they could cater to our needs. It has been quite an education. 

Once you get over its brown skies, Delhi is a pleasant city to visit. It offers all the amenities of a modern city as well as lots of tradition, and traffic. Lots and lots and lots and lots of traffic. For a country of over 1.2 billion, India doesn’t really have that many vehicles, a mere 70 million. The trouble is that 7 million of those vehicles are in Delhi, and the roads are simply unable to cater to that need. Add to that the fact that numerous main arteries are half dug up as Delhi installs a modern metro system, and all too often you get clogged so bad that you can move 100 meters in 40 minutes.

But Delhi has wide tree-lined boulevards, shopping centers galore, markets and souks, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses, as well as restaurants that can keep any palate busy for hours on end. I actually like it. I like Delhi. The more I come back the more I feel comfortable there (my lungs don’t but that’s another matter). I am often approached by strangers on the street asking where I’m from, getting into conversations, being offered advice on all sorts of local matters ranging from tomatoes to taxis, rickshaws to rucksacks, and politics to pajamas.

The people of India are inherently friendly, patient, tolerant and warm. I am all too familiar with those who opine that foreigners are considered walking wallets, and yes, when you ask a price it’s considered to be an opening bid and not the actual price. Thus you are, in truth, forced into a negotiation that you may not be comfortable with – especially if you come from a place where the price is in fact the price. However, that’s all part of learning to understand another culture. Don’t compare it to what you know or to the place from where you come or to other places you have visited. Cultures are different and in order to understand them, you need to open your mind, understand why things are the way they are and accept that. That way, you will be comfortable with it relatively swiftly, and these kinds of things will cease to bother you (most of the time).

Wide greenery-lined streets and roads are matched in their beauty by Delhi’s public parks and government areas. Raisina Hill, home to the president’s residence, the parliament, numerous public buildings, all in grand design by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker, give the heart of Delhi a sense of Empire. On the Rajpath, Delhi's version of The Mall in Washington DC, you can feel the muscle in the architecture. This is no puny country. These edifices spell POWER! And despite the fact that India is still today a collection of multiple clans, peoples and states that often have nothing in common other than a shared citizenship – their languages are different, their skin color is different, their food is different – so that nation building hasn’t really been completed yet; despite this all there is a sense of joint purpose in this vast democracy.  

And the hotels. Oh, the luxury! Oh, the opulence! There is a paucity of words in my use of the English language to describe the poshness of Delhi’s lodgings. Butlers scurry hither and thither in their desire to provide for the needs, requirements and simple desires of their guests. Shiny marble floors reflect like mirrors everything that walks upon them. Smiling servants and smiling savants populate these homes-away-from-homes as the guests spill out from their Jaguars and Rolls Royces and Lotuses and Land Rovers. My work requires me (fortunately) to often visit with the senior staff of these hotels and I am ever impressed by their willingness to accommodate the sometimes complicated requirements of my travelers. In almost all cases the answer to my requests is “yes.” And afterwards we work out the details so that those who travel with me are able to travel in India the way they travel anywhere else on our beautiful planet. I am impressed by their professionalism and their dedication to their industry. It’s what makes them the leaders they are.

On the flip side, many people in India are getting increasingly angry and fed up with the amount of corruption of their public officials. Where I come from you cannot be a liquor baron and a member of parliament. Once elected to the latter, you are required by law to give up all other occupations. In India, however, too many liquor barons and hoteliers, casino owners and newspaper publishers, industrialists and lawyers, leverage their parliamentary positions as elected officials to enhance their own profits and influence.   

It is high time India legislated this away – but can they? Will the parliament in Delhi forbid its own members from raking in the dough at the expense of the electorate it is supposed to be serving? Time will tell. But on this score, I think I throw in my lot with the skeptics.

Some years ago China was described as a crouching tiger, ready to pounce. That tiger is no longer crouching - China is undoubtedly the most powerful nation on the planet today. India, however, is a crouching elephant. It is strong but gentle, powerful but placid, potent but patient. Respect it, and it will provide you with endless and willing service. Anger it, and you may not live to tell the tale.

Delhi. Capital City of ever complicated and contrasted !ncredible !ndia.

(or Kochi, as it is correctly known here)

Flying into Kochi is like flying into Bangkok, or the Caribbean. Tons of palm groves as far as the eye can see. Obviously a sign of balmy, steaming, tropical weather, unlike the weather in northern India which has been wonderfully cool in the mornings and evenings. True enough, soon as I stepped off the plane it hit me full blast in the face: the heat and the humidity came on very strong, and within minutes I was sweltering.

Once again, the group got onto the bus and I headed into town by car to get ahead of the group and arrange for their arrival. Ah, but the traffic, the traffic... India, being India, the only predictable thing is the unpredictability of everything. I was in a small car so we managed to weave our way through the traffic, but the bus moved much slower. The result was that we recommended that the bus come directly to the hotel, and the part of the tour that would have been on Friday afternoon would be moved to Sunday.

The group stayed in a place called the Tower House. It's a heritage building in Fort Cochin, also known as Mattancherry, which is the old part of the city. There are many antique Portuguese and Dutch buildings here that have been converted into boutique lodgings.   

This one has 13 rooms of which we occupied 10. We also had our own dining room set up in the library, which overlooked the pool. The rooms here are HUGE and so even though it was far from a 5-star hotel, the authenticity and the antiqueness of the place made a lovely impression on the guests. 

(As an aside, I must say that I am traveling with an amazing group of people, who are all lovely people and not at all fussy, and take everything is good spirits. They all absolutely loved the Tower House!)

While all were settling in, I schlepped out to examine the route to the shul. We had so many contradicting versions of the distance, that the only thing to do was to go a check personally. I mean, when we arrived, our local guide said it was three to four kilometers. Within five minutes it had grown to six kilometers. Moshe the Chabadnik said 25 minutes walk, so there was no way I was not going to find out for myself. At the same time I figured that in that heat we would need at least 2 stops for water along the way, which we found and paid for, so that the guests could stop there for a drink on the way to shul. In short, I figured it was a 40 minute walk, at a regular pace. Turns out it took ten minutes more seeing as people were pretty much strolling along on Shabbat morning.

All our catering here in Kochi was provided by a kosher caterer, a Chabadnik, who made "Heimische Essen" type food, which for everyone was a welcome diversion after the spicy foods we had been eating until this time. We found another two Jewish couples on vacation here and so we had a minyan for Kabbalat Shabbat at the hotel, and afterward an amazing Shabbat dinner, with zemirot, wine and whiskey all round.  

On Shabbat morning we had breakfast and then headed out for the walk to shul, stopping along the way at the watering holes. We made it to shul while they were still in pesukei dezimra so that was fine. There would have been a minyan without us seeing that there was a tour of young Russian Jewish Americans who were there with a guide who did the guides course with me. He's gone into that market and does kiruv work that way. With us there were about 20 men in shul, which is probably more than they have had in that shul for 50 years at least. The reason is that while many groups come to visit the shul (it gets some 10,000 visitors per week, so they are NOT poor) Jewish groups never seem to stay there over Shabbat. Even the observant groups that come to India and travel through South India never stay there over Shabbat, because of the distance from any reasonable accommodation to the shul. Once again, our group took it all in their stride. They have not stopped talking about how impressive and meaningful it was to spend Shabbat there rather than in some fancy hotel.

The shul itself dates back to 1534. The original shul dates back to the 1300s, but it was burned down when the Portuguese arrived bringing Christianity's hatred of Jews with them. That is the only known recorded anti-Jewish event in Indian history.

After shul the group sponsored a lunch for everyone at the home of Sarah Cohen who lives in Jew Town (the name of the street because, historically, all the Jews lived there) a few houses away from the shul. She is 87 years old and is the last Jewish person who still lives in Jew Town. She was absolutely thrilled to see so many Jewish people in the shul. Some other members of the community (which currently numbers between 9 and 40 - opinions are divided) also came, the women dressed in their finest saris, as well as two former members of the community who were visiting from Israel, one who had come to put up a tombstone for his father, and together with the other kids group and a young couple traveling through, we were a lovely crowd all jammed into Sarah Cohen's living room wall-to-wall sardine style. For the members of our group this was a highlight you could not buy for money. After lunch was minchah and then the walk back to the hotel, sleep, seudah shlishit and then maariv with havdalah, before we all went out for a walk, a drink and to bed.

On Sunday we started the day with a stroll down the road from our hotel to the Church of St. Francis. The building was erected here by the Portuguese during the period that they ruled this small part of India. It was here that Vasco da Gama, the man who discovered the sea route from Europe to India (via the Cape of Good Hope) was buried after his death. He was later exhumed and reinterred in Portugal. As one who grew up in South Africa, and learned of da Gama’s exploits early in school, this was an important place to visit.

As we left there we drove past a laundry service that had put our the laundered garments and sheets to dry on washing lines that stretched all across a massive field. Fascinating!

Afterwards went to the new part of town, where there are two other Shuls, both no longer in use. The one is completely closed and the person who has the key never allows anyone in. The other is open and is used on Sundays as a place for the younger generation of the community there to meet for 'cheder' lessons. That local Chabad shaliach teaches the two men and his wife teaches the four girls and women who come. We met the head of the community who uses the foyer of the shul as his tropical fish business. He was a very interesting man - about in his fifties - who still recalls old songs and melodies from his parents. There are no longer any Sifrei Torah in this shul. They have all been transferred to Israel where they are in the shuls of the Cochin expats.

The visit here was also fascinating and the group absolutely loved meeting the local people. Here too we met the man's brother-in-law visiting from Mumbai. The street where these two shuls are located is called Jew Street. Afterwards we headed back to the old part of town seeing as the group wanted to go shopping at Sarah Cohen's store, which she operates out of her house. Shopping is indeed very important for our guests, and shopping here was even more important to them.   

In the afternoon we took a cruise around Kochi harbor just to enjoy some down time. Everyone appreciated NOT having to go somewhere or see something that involved getting onto and off a bus. We walked from the hotel to the jetty before the cruise and walked back afterwards. A chicken dinner with copious amounts of wine rounded off the day, and it was followed by a walk along the sea wall. The sea wall is dotted with Chinese fishing nets. These are typical fishing nets but they are attached to large wooden cranes with pulleys and balances that lower the nets into the water every hour or so, for about 15 minutes. They are then hauled by pulley and weight into the air and the catch is removed. It is mainly made up of mussels and small fish, which are immediately sold to local buyers coming by. The process is repeated a few times daily - the locals are really not into working too hard, you see.

As an observation of Indian society it appears to me that this country is destined to remain a relatively backward society as the rest of the world moves forward. The Hindu concept of 'karma' so envelops everything here, that there is no social responsibility whatsoever. If you are poor, that is your destiny, your karma. So why should I interfere in your karma by giving you money? You are poor and so shall you be. If your karma was otherwise, you would not be poor. The same seems to me to be the case with all things here in India. There appears to be an overwhelming projection of lethargy. As if to say, if my karma was to be energetic, then I would be. If I am not, it's a sign that it's my karma to be not energetic. I would even go so far as to say that any advancement in India will forever remain in the hands of the few who don't rely on karma but on effort.   

In general, my return to India after 12 years has left me sad. Was it infatuation with the east that caused me to like India so much before? When I think back, it was the people that I grew to like so much. There seemed to me to be an attitude of there always being room for one more, no matter how crowded or how poor; an inherent patience with this thing called life. That has not changed. I see it this time too. However the lethargy, and the "don't care" attitude, and the "give me some money for this or that effort or service" seems to be much more pervasive than it used to be. Of course, it's more than possible that it was like that before too, but seeing that I was not in a service industry at that time, I didn't have to deal with it then and now I do.

Now, in the deluxe hotels in which we have stayed that has not been the case. Everyone is keen to offer service and to make sure that everything is as best it can be. However, in Cochin, which has a communist government, and where the unions and employees are in fact the true bosses, it was - and I will use a word that hardly ever escapes my lips - disgusting, and it has left me feeling very angry, sad and disappointed.   

The strange thing is that the group members had an absolutely wonderful time and for them Cochin has been the highlight of the whole tour! Of course that is because the work done behind the scenes is never exposed in front of them. From that point of view I am a service provider, and I have to work with those who provide me service in order to ensure that the guests have the best time.

On Monday we left Cochin and travelled to Allepey, a nearby town on the bank of a series of canals, known here as the "backwaters." Here we boarded what's called a houseboat. It's a long boat divided into a series of en-suite bedrooms (ours had 5 bedrooms) a kitchen, a deck, and ours also had a large open dining room on the upper floor, where everyone went to sit. We went for a four hour cruise along the canals, rivers and lagoons that make up the backwaters. The canals were developed in order to enable access to the city for the people who lived out in the boondocks. So outside every home there is a long boat, similar to those that can be seen on the Chao Praya River in Bangkok, but not motorized. It's oar-powered. In it people do their shopping and visiting and whatever.

The divisions among the rooms, the walls and ceilings of the house boats are made from wicker. The wicker itself is created from coir which is a by-product of coconut hair, and coconuts grow in abundance here, what with the tropical climate and all. All in all there is a romantic feeling about this area. You see many houseboats plying the rivers silently, like hippos floating along with the tide.   

They can be seen docked at the riverside, or with the guests sitting on the decks, or eating a meal. Some of them are also luxury houseboats with a single bedroom. Also, they each have a kitchen so they provide meals. You can rent them for a day, a few hours or for a few days, during which time you can cruise along doing nothing but enjoying pure, relaxing leisure. 

After the cruise it was back on the bus and off to the airport for our flight back to Delhi. This time the Chabadnik caterer outdid himself and provided a superb packaged meal and everyone boarded the plane full and satisfied. And again, as always throughout this trip, almost everybody makes a point of coming to say thank you.

It is our last full day in India and we have come to spend it here in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. By the way, it is written Mahal, but it's pronounced Mehel. Just so you know. I guess the incorrect pronunciation is another of the many blunders the British made and left here.

We left Delhi this morning at 6:15 a.m. on the Shatabdi Express. This is India's equivalent of Japan's Shinkansen, only it's not as clean, not as fast, definitely not as tidy nor as comfortable. However, in all fairness, for India, it is indeed rather impressive. And it was on time too! Agra is a 6 hour road trip from Delhi, while on the train we took it was only two hours.

The main purpose of coming here was, of course, to see the Taj Mahal, the singular most well known monument in all of India, and possibly all the world. And impressive it most definitely is. Forget the story of the Mughal king and his love for his wife, which is why he built it, as an expression of his love for her. That is all well and nice. However, as an architectural wonder it is magnificent. It is perfectly balanced, perfectly symmetrical, to the extent that the Arabic script that adorns its walls appears to be the same size but in fact grows larger as it becomes more distant so as to be always legible (by those who can read it).  

Agra is also a city full of monkeys and lots and lots of holy cows. There were monkeys all over the place at the station and also at the Taj Mahal. Squirrels too. And in the tuk tuk I took back from the Taj Mahal to the hotel there were herds of water buffalo roaming the streets, along with the traffic. Road rules in this place are definitely recommendations only! The guy picked me up on the wrong side of the street, or in the opposite direction to the traffic, but that didn't stop him from driving full blast into the oncoming traffic, honking like a lunatic, until a gap enabled him to whizz across the street onto the correct side. What a riot!

Another feature of Indian society that came to light on this part of the tour was the huddled masses that populate the railway stations in Delhi and in Agra. I suspect this is true of other railway stations too, but I testify to those I have now seen. We arrived to Delhi Central Station while it was still dark. Thousands of people were all over the place waiting for trains, I imagine, and sleeping on the station platforms. Here too, many beggars are already at "work" coming up to us with hands outstretched. When we left Agra late at night, there too there were people sleeping all over the station platforms, and even between the tracks. While I understand the Indian worldview of caste and karma, and why by and large no one helps the poverty stricken, I find it very, very disturbing. It makes me angry. I know of Sikh temples in numerous places in India that provide daily meals for tens of thousands of people, but the usual replies I have received from the haves regarding the have-nots is that this is the way Indian society operates, and that's the way it is. Caste and Karma.  

Later today we will take the two hour train ride back to Delhi. And that brings me to tomorrow, the day I look forward to with great expectation. After lunch tomorrow its check out and off to the airport for the flight to Mumbai and the connection to Tel Aviv. Ah, to be home again! I can't wait!

Seeing 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!"

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.