Dear Minions

Hello.

Guess what? I’ve had quite a horrible travel experience so far, that’s what. I won’t bore you with all the minor details now, but I will give you a bit of the story to help whet your appetite for when I return next week.

Correction. IF I return ALIVE next week.

First, due to traffic, I nearly missed my outbound flight and had to run, run, RUN through the airport to make the plane… only to sit sweating on the runway for the next two hours waiting for the fog to clear so we could take off. Did I mention it was hot? And that I had just run a million miles to get to the plane? And that I was sweating profusely, not only from the run but also because the plane was warm and stuffy? Because, of course, turning on the air conditioning would waste fuel and in these uncertain times we couldn’t afford to waste precious fuel, now could we?

My, oh my, did that flight stink. Literally.

Now of course, due to the flight delay, I missed my connection in Frankfurt and had to be rerouted on a later flight. But, since there were no more direct flights to Bangalore I would need to make another connection before reaching my final destination. And what glorious place would I be going? Why, Bombay, of course! Bombay, where I spent six glorious hours in the airport (beginning at 1am and ending at 6am) with nothing to do but enjoy my own delicious travel scent and watch the other people waiting for the connection drift off to sleep on the floor one by one, almost as if they were quietly dying off and leaving me to suffer in misery all alone. Luckily, since I had nothing better to do, I had taken a sitting positioned at the ticketing booth and was second in line when it opened at 5am.

Unluckily, not being a native I didn’t know the local customs concerning lines.

A quick note here about the way things are done here in India. Specifically, how people go about their business when there is, oh, let’s say only one person offering help and many people who wish to receive said help. Like at a ticketing counter, for example. In America, people will naturally form a line, one behind another, and wait patiently for their turn to receive help. Oh sure, sometimes people will resent the line for moving slowly, but they will still wait their turn even as they curse and sigh and fume.

Not so in India.

It has come to my attention that in India there is no such thing as a line. Lines are nonexistent. They are fabrications of myth, fairytales of lands far, far away. Velvet ropes are decorations, not unbreakable force fields designed to herd people to and fro in an efficient and effective manner.

Simply put, and to paraphrase the One; in India there is no line.

In India, anyone silly enough to believe that simply standing behind a person means that you will be next in “line” will be sorely disappointed. Especially when, as soon as the person ahead of them leaves, all of the other people behind them suddenly surge forward like a tidal wave of selfishness in their efforts to become “next”. The downside is that one must fight like mad just to get one’s airline tickets or move past the security check-in counters. On the upside, while killing is frowned upon, maiming or crippling those whom you wish to pass is considered perfectly acceptable and civilized behavior.

Which may be the only reason I’m not in jail.

Anywaste, when I finally got to Bangalore I discovered that the car and driver that was supposed to pick me up at the airport was, surprise, not there. So I just wandered about the airport until I found a pre-pay taxi booth and ordered myself a taxi. Fortunately, by this time, I was so mentally and physically drained that I believed I didn’t care what happened to me as long as I got to my hotel so I could shower.

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that I DID still care.

When I was younger I used to think that the drivers from New Jersey were the worst drivers in the world. Then I went to France and I realized just how wrong I had been. Then I went to China and realized that I had been FAR too limiting in my worldview since it was obvious that there was absolutely no way that ANYONE could be more psychopathic on the road than a Singapore taxi driver battling for street supremacy against 200 million bicyclists.

And now I’ve been to India.

Funny thing about India, when driving they tend to use the horn far more than the gas, brake or common sense. It seems that no matter what vehicle one drives in India, if you do not honk your horn at least 5 times every minute you are breaking some Indian law. I quickly discovered that honking your horn was not only necessary for driving in India, it was vital. Without honking Indian drivers would be lost. Honking was their way of conversing on the road and without their incessant honking they would have no way to say things like, “Look out!” or “Hello!” or “I’m going that way!” or “Watch me scare the crap out of this American idiot.”

Although come to think on it that last one might have been my imagination.

And once again lines, and by extension lanes and turning signals, were little more than optional suggestions rather than rules to be followed. If there was an inch between two cars, then someone on a bicycle would squeeze in. Two inches and a motorcycle would zoom through, and if you dared to leave three inches a bus would appear as if by magic! It was fortunate indeed that by halfway through my Ride Of Screeching Doom I had given up on life in general and would have been thrilled to welcome death. Miraculously, my driver’s honking prowess proved unmatched and I arrived safe and sound (relatively) at my hotel without him hitting anything or anyone.

That I saw, at least.

So now, my minions, I think I’ll take a shower, eat some food, report to work and then, if the gods are merciful, I will sleep for the next year and a day. If the gods are not merciful… well, then I’ll simply curl up in a ball in a corner and cry.

And knowing my luck, I’ve already picked out the corner.