Even a lifetime of living in India (well 21 years at least) cannot prepare one for the shock of encountering the traffic on any Indian road. Or maybe the nice orderly American traffic makes a person too soft. In any case, the shock of seeing vehicles – slow, fast, big, small and ugly share the same narrow streets, while seemingly moving in bizarre directions while avoiding each other by the faintest margins is something that can only be experienced. And yes, horns are not offensive in the least – in fact, if you do not blow your horn every time you get close to another vehicle, or intersection or even if you see someone crossing the street in front of you (which is almost every few seconds), it will be considered rude. When I took my driving test in India, the cop who sat with me asked me to check my mirrors, start the engine, shift into the first gear and yes, honk loudly once before putting my foot down on the accelerator. Traffic lights? well, they are considered to be suggestions, unless you actually have a cop standing at the intersection. Blind Spots? No one has ever heard of them because everyone’s driving defensively anyway. If you ever get to watch a city intersection from above, you will see cars, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, scooters and even cows (if you are in any North Indian state) converging together from all four sides and somehow making it out through the gaps like sand through a sieve. The miracle is that everything happens with a Cirque du Soleil kind of precision – meaning no accidents!
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I’ve long been an admirer of German precision and engineering and everything else that they seem to do perfectly, which is why I felt let down by the Frankfurt airport restrooms. They were at bizarre distances apart, and quite ugly too, with green paper towels and dull interiors. They did have some really efficient toilet paper though – dotted like a condom, and abrasive like sand paper. The dang thing nearly shaved an inch of skin off my ass!
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Flying domestic in India is more comfortable than flying International! The aircrafts (Jet Airways at least) have spacious seats, the flights are not crowded at all, the air hostesses are extremely pretty and they comp you with the best food ever! On every flight I took (and I took 6 flights within India) I was served either lunch, breakfast or dinner, no matter how long or short the flight. On Jet, you are provided candies before takeoff, drinks afterwards, followed by a well catered meal. They even hand out feedback cards randomly towards the end of the flight where you are asked to rate the flight, the food and even the flight attendants!
I flew the much maligned Air India for my trip from LA to Mumbai and back, and while it wasn’t as luxurious as some of the other airlines, it was not bad at all. The aircraft for the LA-Mumbai flight was probably an older craft because the economy class seats were spaced apart like business class seats (On the return flight the aircraft was cramped like any other flight) with personal video terminals and such. One nice thing is that flight attendants not only provide you with all the alcohol you want, they actually encourage you to down some more! On the return flight, one of the attendants offered a strange new beer “just to try out something new” and when I didn’t like it, he offered more beer (heineken this time) so that I could “drink it and go to sleep comfortably”. Not bad at all… now if only they could make the aircraft look a little less shabby…
– to be continued