Reality Check 1

I shall be peppering the road back to India with reality checks as and when I get them. These shall be stories of events as personally experienced or as heard about from reliable sources.

Here's the first. My brother is in India, landed a couple weeks ago and found his luggage was misplaced by that esteemed airline, Air India. Great food by the way even in economy. Everything else...the less said the better.

Anyway he gets a call eventually. Your bags have arrived. Come and get them.

No home delivery, you ask, you spoilt petulant child? No courier service where a hefty man drives up in a gas guzzling vehicle and walks to your door and hands you your bags? Alas, no. Its that whole rich country vs. developing country thing again. So anyway come and get it, they say.

My brother makes his way to the airport.

Security promptly stops him, outside the airport. He cannot go in. Hey who knows where terrorists abound and in what form, right?

"Air India lost my luggage. I'm here to pick it up," my brother says, shows him his ticket, passport, mother's birth certificate etc.

"Sorry, can't go in unless you're a passenger," says security.

"Yes but they called me here. I need to go in."

"Sorry, not my problem. Call them."

Good idea. My brother calls about six thousand times and each time a female voice informs him that the line is busy, would he wait. Forty five minutes pass. Next to him standing in the sweltering sun are other victims of lost luggage who have been waiting for over two hours. Not to be defeated, my brother seeks and finds a number that is actually answered by a human.

"You're here? Good. I'll be out to get you," says an authoritative voice.

"When?" my brother asks.

"I don't know." The man hangs up.

My brother continues to wait. An hour passes. Its hot, hunger pangs are starting to strike. There's so much other stuff to do. There's an event to attend in the evening and well, time's awasting. And its...did I mention...hot? My brother starts calling the number that was answered by this man.

Relentlessly. Mercilessly.

Break them down with sheer persistence is a good way to get things done in India.

The other lost luggage souls sit patiently, accepting their fates, waiting for someone to arrive through the gates, give them their bags and some modicum of peace. Not my brother. He calls and calls and calls until the messiah of luggage shows up. Just Air India though. Tough luck the rest of you poor sods.

Bro makes his way through a labyrinth of ledgers--peons of various sorts ask him the same questions and write his name and passport number down in a series of dusty ledgers to record his arrival and he is led to a place and after much bureaucratic ceremony is handed his bags and mustn't forget--the saving grace of the day--money for his taxi ride back.

Hallelujah!

Still keeping his cool bro takes his car from the lot and starts to make his way home. On the way, he drives through a yellow light only to be stopped by a policeman who keeps it brief.

"For one hundred rupees, I'll give you your license back, and no receipt (ticket essentially). For two hundred rupees, I shall take your license and deposit it with the RTO and you shall get a receipt."

Bro wants to do the right thing. "I made a mistake. Give me a ticket, I'll pay the two hundred but do return my license."

The policeman repeats his first offer as if he hasn't heard this response. Why the dilemma about paying the shamelessly asked for bribe. Let me explain. RTO stands for Road Transport Authority. No can't be authority. Its an O. Must be Office, Ominous orifice of an office. So big deal go to the RTO and collect your license right? Maybe. Except there is only one RTO he can go to. Bombay has, lets see, how many people living there? Oh yes, about 14 million give or take. How many of them might be at this ominous office in a given day, I dread to think. There is one other consideration. What takes 15 minutes say in the richest country in the world takes oh...about...2-3 hours in India. This is a blanket statement many might righteously refute but if we average it, fine, I'll say 2 hours. Save face as it were.

Bro thinks on his feet as the policeman watches him. There is the right thing to do. Pay the 200, hand over the license. Then there is the dreaded thought of this tiny 2"X4" license going to this Orifice...I mean Office of bored bureaucrats, overflowing with a million irate folk. Retrieving it will take four hours or so not including traveling there and back home, unless one uses one of the "agents" that sit outside the pearly gates of the RTO just waiting to "help."

Bro is fried from picking up his luggage already and the event he really wants to go to is in a few hours.

He bites his tongue, apologizes to the Gods of anti-corruption and pays the man the hundred rupees.

No receipt. You get to keep your license. Oh, and have a nice day.

India Return--A new beginning...

We're moving back to India. And as a way of coping with that life changing event I'm going to write about it.

In a most politically incorrect manner too for moving from the richest country in the world to err....a developing nation country is going to take some adjustment, never mind that I'm from there. It takes only a short time to get completely spoilt, which we now are.

Why go back, I sometimes ask myself at 3:00 am. Why leave this idyllic existence for...well...who knows what? I haven't lived in India since 1996. Its been a while. Lots has changed.

Sentimental family reasons abound, good sound ones too, which make the decision irrevocable but it doesn't mean I don't question it during the darkest hours of the night and worry and worry and worry. Worrying is what I do best, after all.

India is an interesting country. A land of polar opposites--the best and worst of humanity co-exist side by side. The most opulent sits perched beside the most wretched. The most inefficient limps along trying to keep up with state of the art bleeding edge stuff. The end result is a colossal, confusing mess but with a method to its madness. A method that is a mystery, far too difficult to understand. But as someone said in the movie--Outsourcing--"don't fight it. If you fight it you'll be unhappy. Accept it, let it wash all over you."

That is India in a nutshell.

Take a deep breath relax. Accept. After all, its fate, I will tell myself.

Lets see now if I can pull this off.

Four months to go to touchdown. Lots of worrying left, lots of planning. I am sitting cross-legged, my eyes are closed.

Om.

Afternoon Tea

I thought our afternoon tea experience last weekend was a good one to attempt a Zagat-esq review for.

It is this cute little French creperie in the Chicago suburbs called Suzette's Creperie. We have always liked their food and desserts so far but afternoon tea that afternoon was, well, close to a disaster, for me anyway who likes every meal to be a celebration.

Yes I am picky, sue me.

Now this restaurant has a bakery section, charming area with a couple tables and a display case of baked goodies. Separated by a foyer is the main dining area, lot more formal.

For some reason or another (mostly that they are tres tres busy all the time), we have almost always been seated in the bakery section on our visits there. This suits us fine for we eat there with our four year old who, though a veteran of restaurants of varying star levels in four countries, is still, well, a four year old.

So to my slight chagrin (since I had made my booking for tea over two weeks ago) we were seated in the bakery section again. Wouldn't have been a big problem if it was one of their tables by the window but this time the restaurant was a trifle too ambitious. They had an extra table squeezed right next to the display cases, kissing distance from the cases actually so we spent the hour or so we were there aglow in its tube-lit glory.

Again I wouldn't have minded quite so much (I am nothing if not flexible) but the restroom was few feet away from our table and the way it was positioned, a visitor to the restroom would have to really squeeze themselves beside us to get there. And they did. This started as a mild irritation and soon became intolerable since now and again, an apologetic restaurant patron (I don't blame them at all) would come by our table and squeeze themselves in the two inches that remained between our table and a cupboard nearby in order to get to the restroom. Shaking table each time of people going back and forth, feeling like one is in a railway station waiting room. Not pleasant. And certainly not conducive to a relaxing afternoon tea.

Perhaps because of the undesirability of our location I had to ask the waitress leaning across their display cases each time, to please re-fill my tea--something they are supposed to do at regular basis at an afternoon tea. Also flabbergasting was that we had a choice of two teas. Earl Grey and some Lavender Herbal number. Two teas!!? I expected a menu of gourmet teas, each one more exotic and desirable than the next. It is afternoon TEA, remember people? Oh yes, and all this for a whopping 30$ per person. Not worth it at all. To be fair the sandwiches were nice, the desserts too. The highlight were the scones course which made the trip sort of worthwhile.

Needless to say we won't be frequenting Suzette's again for afternoon tea. At the risk of sounding like a food snob (which I regrettably am), I think we shall stick to regular afternoon teas in India where it is an age old tradition.

Or in say, Orangerie, opposite Kensington Palace in London where the clotted cream alone sells the whole experience and the teas are to die for. And of course in that place I consider pastry heaven, Laduree, in Paris where the pastries and teas are so sublime that one doesn't mind the snooty servers or having to yell monsieur, monsieur, until one is blue in the face in order to get someone's attention.