New Delhi: Headed for…

We understand that when somebody else pays you to do something which is of no benefit at all to them, there's gotta be a catch. It's just that we don't think about what that catch might be. At least I don't. After loitering around at the Katunayake Airport for roughly three hours (we HAD to be there that early – what if a hippie wearing sunglasses at 3 in the morning brought in an explosive joint of Himalayan weed? We'd need the time to come back to – right?) we finally boarded what seemed like the 1:16 model of a regular commercial air-plane. Take off was shaky to say the least, and honestly, I was nearly peeing in my pants. The flight and landing itself were not so bad, but Chennai was.

See, I had been warned (roughly fifty-two times) that if there's one place in the world you don't want to be – it's Chennai. Of course, as with all other pieces of valuable information I get in the form of warnings, I didn't take much notice. But, I discovered for myself later (as with the follow-up to all other pieces of valuable information I get in the form of warnings) that I wished I had listened. Why?

1. Chennai is hot. Especially immediately after getting off a plane. The heat hits you like a very heavy pillow wielded by your sixteen-year-old brother who is just discovering his physical prowess. Then it wraps you up like a blanket, sticks to your skin and makes you want to puke. It's not nice, I say.
2. Chennai is noisy. The airport is shielded from the rest of the city by a plastic wall (ongoing construction) and the effect is really eerie. Beyond the wall is left to your imagination, which will be complemented by the sound of five-thousand car horns tooting roughly fifteen different tunes each second, fifteen babies crying in the immediate vicinity and one-hundred women and men (each) shouting coarsely in an unintelligible language. All this happens at roughly one-thousand-two-hundred decibels.
3. Chennai is boring. First, there are the queues. You can stand behind one-hundred-and-fifty people of different colors, shapes, sizes and smells for close upon half an hour while the immigration guy checks your visa at the rate of one letter per minute. Then there are the lounges. The airport has all of four duty-free shops at the departure lounge. There's lots to do including staring at the shiny tiled floor and staring at the shiny tiled floor and staring at the shiny tiled floor.
4. Chennai steals. Ok, here's where I admit my whole view of the trip is a little biased. My case got opened either at Colombo or Chennai. Either way, I discovered it at the latter and decided to be rude to a check-in officer on those grounds. I understand that these things (always) happen, and I also understand that most people are unable to control their completely rational urges to look inside other people's bags and take anything worth taking. But I can't understand why these things must be done so obviously. It colors a persons whole future! (A persons whole future in that airport at least!) The tiny (and obviously very effective) padlock which was entrusted with guarding the whole of my belongings was missing. Not only had it been picked and taken off my bag, it had also been LOST. (NOTE: if any of you reading this are regular airport pick-bags, please remember to pick the locks carefully and replace them once the deed is done). If the damned thing had been there I wouldn't have noticed that the bag had been opened. My whole problem was with the fact that who ever did it wasn't scared enough of me to bother with hiding it. <grr…> At least my stuff was where I had put it – ignoring the little bits of dust between the layers of clothes – so my ego wasn't hurt too much. I can't say the same for Leo though, whose case (being more firmly locked – with a four-digit code etc. – and therefore more permanently broken) had been popped open on our return flight and came bouncing down the conveyor belt half open and held together with plastic tape. I was told at Chennai that my complaint was too late since I was already out of arrival and in departure (transit). Apparently I should have checked my bag as soon as I got it (after all, I AM imagining that some psycho at the airport has nothing better to do than rifle through my underwear and other such belongings). My complaint should have been made at the baggage claim, where passengers are not alerted to the regular procedure of making such complaints because "these things don't happen daily". People regularly carry guns, explosives and manure in their hand luggage, and this is why passengers are alerted every ten feet to remove such items from their belongings before checking in. Remembering this, Leo immediately complained to some slut bathed in make-up who was hanging around in a Sri-Lankan Airlines sari. She promptly brought two security officers and two airline officials who each weighed Leo's case in turn, to determine if anything had been taken (something had – a pretty jersey which was not heavy enough to make a detectable change on the airport baggage scales), tried very hard to fix it and did precisely nothing about the fact that it had been opened at all. I stood around wondering why it was morally wrong for me to pick up the case and hit these people with it. Leo's face told me she was thinking of worse.

Regardless of out reservations about the place, we got back on our flight, this time to Delhi. Let me explain my opening. The India-Sri Lanka Foundation was sponsoring our trip to Miranda House College New Delhi, because it was an "international forum" for "Deconstructing the Millennium Development Goals". They supplied us with air-tickets on a flight which served 200ml of (hard) water per person and nothing else. If you really needed more water (say, if you were seriously dehydrated or something), you could pay for it – with Indian rupees or your ass (I really don't know if they'd accept even your ass though). They gave you eight to ten inches of space between your knees and the seat in front of you, if you were short like me. If you happened to be taller, your knees got cushioned.

I'm sorry I'm complaining. The flight attendants were not bad; the guys were very friendly, and very tall. They also had very nice Indian accents. The India-Sri Lanka Foundation people were awesome. There's not enough thanking we can do them. They are patient, helpful, friendly, understanding and also very rich with very little spending opportunity. They went to a lot of trouble to get visas done, flights and accommodation arranged and hospitality taken care of, and our asses packed to New Delhi. We thought we didn't deserve the opportunity. Only the opportunity didn't deserve us.