Monday, July 13, 2009

En Route to AMD Airport - Monday, 5AM

The trip has officially started! In the car on way to AMD airport to shoot off to Delhi and start driving North. Its a typical 5AM morning in AMD - koyals chirping, air warming up, smell of cars and motorcycles and rickshaws hanging heavy in the air. Tejas and I have a couple hours in Delhi to ourselves with a driver - trying to meet up with Parag and Purva for breakfast before they fly out tonight. Congrats to them on their engagement!

AMD has been awesome spending time with family. Its great to see how close and 'nucular' families are in this country. Kids growing up here I feel get more involvement from Grandparents, Uncles, Aunties, etc which really holds fast to the 'it takes a village' theme.


Kaka, Rohan, and Kathan

At airport - gotta run!

On airplane now - couple of observances. As advancement in technology and service has come to India, its funny to see certain procedural antiquities that still exist. My Boarding Pass was touched by 7 people on my way to the plane. If you count the 'guards' at the entrance, then 9 people total. Why? The best part was when the gate lady checked my Boarding Pass, then we walked 2 feet to the door that goes to the runway, and another security guard checked our BP. 2 feet! Amazing.

Flying an airline called SpiceJet. Want to fly Kingfisher at some point but tickets are double the price of other discount carriers - and they're still losing money. I think I read somewhere that Kingfisher airlines still has not run a profit.

Debjani, our hostess, is walking down the aisle, asking 'excuse me please, sir' to everyone and handing out waters. I don't think I've ever heard a 4-word sentence made up solely of honorific courtesies.

Another thing I noticed on our previous and this flight, aside from the hot sweat that you can smell ingrained into the seats and carpet (TII - This Is India, a saying Tej and I have been shooting back and forth), is the complete lack of women on these flights. Aside from air hostesses I have seen maybe 5 woman total on these flights. Funny, in the security lines (which are separated by gender) - there are men for days and the women's line looks like an EZ Pass lane.

Time to take off!

R

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