Having successfully finished my last day of the teaching job, I rushed home to begin packing. My husband would be flying in around midnight, and a few short hours later, we were taking off to Chandigarh for a wedding. I was incredibly excited. Two other friends were flying in from America and I was overjoyed to be with friends again.
When I am in a rush, I am quite the fast packer, but when there is time, I take forever. I put out all of my jewelry, sort it, make lists and happily cross items off of the list when it is properly arranged in the suitcase pile. Heck, even if they are already in the suitcase pile, I still put them on the list. It is just satisfying to be able to cross those items off. I pack and re-pack and happily waste time away while watching The X-Files and munching on the strawberry ice cream that was my flavor of the night.
Our flight was early, so we reached the airport sleepy and exhausted, and were disappointed to find our flight was delayed, apparently due to weather issues in Goa. Now, personally, having lived in the USofA, and thus having flown through snowstorms and thunderstorms and plenty of fog, I think that this country has some funny contradictions. They will drive you through any kind of traffic imaginable (or unimaginable, if you haven’t been here), while talking on their cell phone, without a seatbelt, and yet they seem to delay flights at the drop of a hat for seemingly perfect weather. This is the third or fourth ‘weather’ related delay in my few months of being here.
Now, Indian airports have some good things, like really cheap bookstores, shops that sell good chocolate, and barely any security line for the women, but one thing is a disaster. You can’t check into your flight early. So until the airplane gods (probably, actually, people who have the same job as my sister…) knew exactly what time the flight would take off, you can’t even print your ticket or check your bag in, much less go through security and peacefully sleep at the gate. No, you had to sit with the other 200 people on your flight in the pre-security section of the airport. So we all sat, loudly chatting on cell phones; or paced, dodging between massive suitcases (well, mine was massive, at least, and in the way), as we impatiently waited to learn with the delay was over.
The Mumbai domestic airport has two separate terminals, and we were in the lousy one. I knew from previous experience that the nearest bathroom contained only squat toilets (which were out of TP when I last used them), and the further restroom has only one non-squat toilet. Plus, the crepe vendor in this terminal never has the good flavors (it should be against the law to run out of bananas and Nutella). There was an argument about cash at one of the other food vendors, so my husband couldn’t even get a snack for some time. Needless to say, it isn’t the best airport to be sitting in for extended time periods.
Eventually the cash argument was over, and my husband’s second attempt at food was fruitful and he came back with a hot apple croissant. I, of course, always hungry when I see others with food, immediately went and got my own. It was okay, but a bit skimpy on the apple part of the title.
I wasted the two extra hours away by alternately staring off into outer space, people watching, and reading a Chetan Bhagat novel. I learned, after becoming obsessed with his books, that he works out at the same gym as me, even with my personal trainer! But, like a dork, when I finally got to meet him, he asked me what I do, and I said I was a housewife. Boring! So that conversation died right away. Sigh. I’m like Rachel on Friends. A complete dork when meeting someone awesomely famous. I’ve also met a few Bollywood singers at the gym, but I don’t really watch their movies, so it is meeting the famous author that makes me nervous!
His books are great because they take place in India, but are fun. They are just about normal people. Most of the reading I do about India angers me (i.e., reading about the air quality facts mentioned in my last post), but his just make me laugh and enjoy myself.
When the allotted time delay was up, 200 people rushed to the counters to check in their bags and print their tickets. Of course, we were all intermingled in line with the people on other flights, and thus the airport was much busier than it would have been if they had just taken our darn bags two hours previously.
We passed through security and settled down to wait again. My husband slept, I surfed the web and continued reading. This terminal is small, so eventually we were herded onto buses and taxied to our flight. I finished my first book of the day and started on a second, reading about Charlie Radbourn, an amazing pitcher… back in 1884.
We ordered cookies, juice, and I braved an airplane chicken sandwich (not advised). A couple of hours later and we were landing in Chandigarh airport.
Now, that place was really something. Another wedding attendee later told me that a Frenchman had planned the city in 1952. The city itself is gorgeous. But the airport was another story; it was tiny (about the size of the K-zoo airport) and extremely ugly. I’m guessing it was also planned in 1952; but by a military man not big on tasteful décor of any kind. The first moment when I realized this airport was different was when we alighted. We excited the plane and found ourselves in an empty lot. Usually at this point you jump aboard a bus and it drops you off at the baggage claim area. But here, we were trusted to walk the distance of the lot, to the terminal, by ourselves. It was nice to be trusted.
The airport itself looked more like I imagined a war-zone base to look like, rather than the beautiful city of the north. I’m not sure if it is because it hasn’t been updated since 1952, or because of the nearness to Pakistan, but it certainly was not aesthetically pleasing. Barbed wire and watch posts surrounded us, the buildings all looked like crumbling, white-washed bunkers, green tarps served as temporary awnings, and the walls were composed of sheets of corrugated metal. Large piles of sand/dirt and rubble were strewn about. Perfect movie set for a war film.
When we finally exited the airport, I turned and noticed the completely modern, not-yet-opened new terminal. I’m sure the place will look a lot better in about one year!
We were greeted by a driver who took us to the hotel. The drive was so incredibly beautiful. First, there were actual lines on the street, designating lanes. They were semi-obeyed, which means they were obeyed much more than any other place I have seen in India. Each road was lined with trees, canopies a bit dusted from the lack of rain, but still a nice green color. Oh foliage, how I missed you…. on many roads, peaceful, decorated boulevards separated the lanes of traffic. The earth was still parched, and the ground, if you looked closely, still had litter scattered about. But it was so easy to overlook those details when your eyes soared to vast amounts of greenery. And the space! There weren’t swarms of people running across traffic, or knocking on your window when the car stopped. In that ten-minute drive, Chandigarh won my heart over like Mumbai never will.
When we arrived at the hotel, we went through the most laxed security into a building yet- no body scanning metal detector, a first for entering hotels in India. My purse was still scanned, though. Most of the male employees wore turbans of various colors and sported beards, which I learned is a common sight in this part of the country. The hotel had a beautiful lobby, with an inlaid floral design on the floor. It smelled a bit like shampoo, but that is a better smell than most places I’ve been, so I quickly got used to it.
We checked in and headed up the elevator to our second floor room. The elevator was glass, and gave a nice view of a shallow pool and the lobby as we rode up. It was completely quiet and incredibly peaceful, except for the speed, which made my stomach lurch uncomfortably.
I did find the elevator amusing, however, when I noticed, in English, instructions on how to use the elevator. “Press button for desired floor.” Really? Was that sign necessary? Is there ANY person literate in English that wouldn’t know how to use the elevator without those clear-cut directions? So it was a cute little diversion to think about each time I rode it.
Our room was nice, with a good bathroom (finally, bathrooms seem to take a backseat in this country, but they were very nice in this hotel). The space was nice and big, and there was even a ‘pillow menu’ with about 14 different types of pillows to choose from… we just kept the standard pillows in the room. The room had cream walls adorned with watermarked black and white photos of smiling farmers. Did I mention how peacefully quiet it was?
We very quickly discovered what room our friends were staying in, and headed down to say hi. It was so wonderful to see friends again. So we hugged and giggled, and Friend IH made me happier than I had been in a month when she presented me with a gift of deodorant. She had also, wonderfully, brought us several boxes of delightfully yummy granola bars, which are difficult (and expensive) to find here. But the deodorant! It was a surprise! I’m pretty sure I hugged that little canister more times than my husband that weekend. I have yet to find good deodorant here, and was at the end of my very last one. I’d been using it conservatively- only for the gym or around my husband; and when I was alone, I made-do with this awful, smelly, non-aluminum containing stuff I had gotten at a store in Churchgate. I have successfully found men’s deodorant for my husband, but none for myself. Women in the locker room at the gym seem to prefer to spray this useless stuff that makes me cough. So I don’t even know the right person to ask about finding good deodorant. So, if you can’t tell from this little paragraph, I was exceedingly happy with the gift.
Friend IH and I then proceeded to the highly important tasks of girl talk and playing dress-up and deciding which outfits to wear for the next three days. We had both brought along enough clothes to dress two or three women, so this required a lot of decisions. She was a great sport, letting me dress her up in everything. We ended up leaving for a nap before reaching our final decision for the evening, but I eventually guilted her into wearing my green salwar kameez with lots of sparkly jewels for the first evening, while I wore my new pink lehenga. My husband and Friend SK wore American clothes, and looked very nice, too!
We arrived for the first night’s event, the Sangeet, exactly an hour late, which I do believe, in Indian time, translates to being exactly on time. It was outdoors, with long paper lanterns hanging from tall trees. The tablecloths were pink, red, and gold. There were swanky black couches to lounge on when your feet were tired, but overall, there were minimal decorations and the beauty of the greenery got to do the talking. A dance floor was next to a pool with candles surrounding it. We arrived on a red carpet and even (awkwardly, in my case) posed for pictures.
Once we arrived, we were, of course, swarmed by waiters offering various appetizers. Some waiters were quite persuasive, refusing to leave unless you tried something. It was a bit creepy. But most of the waiters were quite nice and left politely when you said no. In true Indian fashion, the men were all drinking whisky, and I even braved the dangers of ice to have a mojito.
It was basically a nice big party with plenty of food and drinks, and choreographed dancing by the families, and the bride and groom, as entertainment. It was so much fun to watch people dance! We met a ton of sweet cousins/friends and had a fabulous time. By the end, my shoes were kicked under a table, and the wonderful feeling of grass between my toes was blissful.
I do have to say, though, that the best part of Indian weddings isn’t the food, chatting, and dancing. It is staring at all of the fabulous attire. Friend IH told me she felt like all the people were giving her the up and down eye, and then focusing on her flat shoes, but they all complimented her afterwards, so hopefully it wasn’t a bad eye.
Exhausted, we left around midnight and headed back to the hotel to prepare for day two. Official mosquito count: only five bites!
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