Mondaugen's Law

A Layover on the Beach

Our flight from Kuwait landed in Trivandrum at 4:45 am. The next train to Madurai left at 4:20 pm. We were “transit passengers” yet again, but with only a 12 hr. layover. What to do?

The term “layover” brings to mind many emotions, none of them particularly pleasant. Most layovers I’ve experienced were spent in the airport, trying to find something resembling comfort in a waiting room chair, reading every single article in a regional newspaper, including the want ads and “local color” pieces about dentists that collect baseball caps and dogs that can bark in tune. No one I know wishes to have a “long layover.” The term is synonymous with pain and boredom.

But a layover in Trivandrum is another matter. You see, Kovalam Beach, our favorite vacation spot, is just 20 minutes by taxi. The kids were thrilled to have a day at Kovalam ahead of them. First, though, we had to get through immigration, customs, and buy tickets at the train station. Then we were free to hit the beach.

The lines through immigration were many and long. The flight was full, perhaps 300 people. There were five clerks to examine passports and visas. We were among the last off the plane (Isaac needed a glass of water) so we were last in line. I noticed one line was moving particularly fast. So we moved over.

Our line moved so fast, it skimmed the ends of all the other lines. We reached the clerk and handed over our passports and immigration declarations. My heart leaped as he opened them.

Why did my heart leap? Well, nothing is simple in Indian bureaucracy. The American INS is complex, expensive and run by people who pride themselves on being unbending, not-understanding and occasionally mean and truly vicious. The Indian equivalent is complex, cheap, and run by people who don’t much like work, and would much rather be doing other things unless they smell a bribe opportunity. The corrupt ones in Kerala are known as “buddhi,” which means cunning and the opposite of childish. The honest ones are known as “pavangal” which means moral and/or naïve. The trouble is you don’t always want to meet an honest one.

Now, to start with, all our visas are in excruciatingly perfect order. The school goes to great pains—and without bribery—to ensure they are. Consequently, we don’t have our passports on hands for much of the year, since they’re off in Delhi moldering on an un-bribed bureaucrats desk. All this is to obtain various documents we are never asked to show, because most bureaucrats just want their palms greased.

So logically, with visas and permits in order, we should have nothing to worry about. However, when Jeannette arrived back in India, she met a “pavangal” clerk, who was, unfortunately also incompetent. He decided that Jeannette’s “Resident Permit,” was no longer valid, so he confiscated it. The reason was that the original issue date was over a year old. He ignored the several and very clear renewal stamps, obtained with great pains by the school. But the clerk didn’t think the stamps were what Jeannette should have, so he confiscated it, and told her to apply for a new one. No demand for a bribe was ever made, or a “renewal fee” requested. He just would not return the Resident Permit.

Consequently, Jeannette must apply for a new Resident Permit, which is probably illegal, as Jeannette has been in the country for a year and a half and should have a Resident Permit by now. I can just imagine the local authorities ordering the police to deport her for failure to obtain a Resident Permit within 90 days of entering the country.

This is why my heart leaped. Anything could happen at the immigration desk. The clerk had total power to extract money out of me, confiscate any random number of documents, have me arrested, you name it.

He opened my passport to an empty page and stamped it. He opened the kids passports and stamped them. He handed them back. He never asked to see our three Resident Permits. He never even looked up from his desk.

I felt a bit like Mr. Bean, said “oh!” to myself, looked around nervously and hurried away dragging the bewildered kids. Time was of the essence: he might call us back, after all.

At customs we were smiled at and not detained.

As we exited the airport, I saw something I will never forget. On the one hand I wish that I had an image to show. But were I back there now, I would not take a photo.

Waiting outside the airport exit, behind a long fence, were all the families of the Keralan men on the plane. The faces of many hundreds of women, in their finest saris, were focused on the door we walked through. Children’s faces peered through the fence around the women’s knees and above and along side their faces, held in arms or sitting on shoulders. It was a sea of faces, jammed together tightly, women’s and children’s, mixed in the rich colors of silk saris. This tableau was six feet high and perhaps a hundred feet long.

The context, the expressions on the faces and their meaning gave the vision power. These were the families the men on the plane had left behind to make better money in Kuwait, perhaps any money at all. Perhaps some could afford to fly home every year, but most I would guess had been away for years. Perhaps some had lost their jobs and were coming home in disgrace. Certainly none were tourists returning to Kerala.

The women’s faces, even caught at a glance, expressed powerful expectation. None seemed particularly jubilant—there was no chatter, the group was almost silent—but none seemed upset or worried. There was just a charged atmosphere, an overwhelming and staring expectation in their faces.

I sucked in my breath as I glanced at this wall of women, but was immediately distracted by a tout who wanted to carry my luggage. He snatched at our bags repeatedly on the way to the taxi, prevented only by swats and shouts. At the taxi, he lifted both bags and put them in the trunk. Then he held out his hand with a huge smile on his face. I thought for a bit, then put a rupee in his hand.

“You shift bags 1 foot distance, I give you 1 rupee.” He laughed and took it: finally, a tout with some humility.

The taxi driver as well seemed a happy fellow, in spite of the pre-dawn damp gloom. As we climbed in, I much enjoyed the cramped Ambassador front seat, my knees grinding against the dash, the damp white towel laid over the seats, the huge shudder the car made starting up then the incredible metal-grinding noise the diesel motor made going through the gears. A wildly colorful Ganesha on the dashboard with blinking lights made the Indian experience complete. It marveled at the culture shift from antiseptic Kuwait to grungy, funky India.

We chatted a bit about where we were from.

“Ah, you live Kodiakanal! Nice place, Kodaikanal. I like going there. Hahahahaha.” Our taxi driver seemed to find the prospect of going to Kodai very amusing.

We stopped at a bank machine on the way. While I wrestled with the ATM to get it to recognize my card, I noticed the driver had gotten out of the car, lit a bidi and was dancing around, little hops this way and that. I think he was humming a tune. It was the silliest thing.

“You look happy. You’re dancing.”

“Yes sir, hahahaha,” he replied. But he didn’t seem to be stoned or drunk. He didn’t reel, his driving was fine. He was just happy.

Not long after, as we drove through a residential area, he swerved the car close to a tea stall that loomed suddenly out of the dark, leaned out his window and made a loud and horrendously silly noise at a man standing there:

“BLUDDABLOODUFABODDUBLUDDABLUSPLFF!”

It was all nonsense noise, mainly made by shaking his cheeks and snorting through his nose. He pulled his head back in the car and continued driving, with a smile on his face.

“Is this your neighborhood?” I asked coyly.

“Yes. I live just down that street. That fellow is my good friend. I make him jump. Hahahahaha” was the jolly reply. I looked in the backseat at the kids, who had the greatest expression of surprise, delight and muffled laughter on their faces. I think this was the first time they saw anyone aside from their father do something really silly. And they didn’t have to be embarrassed by it.

We arrived at the train station about 6 am, to find the reservations booth didn’t open until 8am. So first we dropped our heavy luggage in the “Coat Room,” then went for breakfast in the train station restaurant.

These restaurants are generally run down, and this one was no exception. The eating hall is just dingy, the menu painted on the walls 30 years ago, only the prices of recent vintage. The formica tables were chipped and the steel chairs rusty. The lighting was about as poor as it could be, and still be considered lighting.

Any Westerner brave enough to look in the kitchen will never eat anything prepared in a railway restaurant. The soot and grease around the stove have generally never been cleaned in a century of continuous operation. This black sticky horror peels off in chunks on occasion, and otherwise seems to coat the whole kitchen, floor, ceiling and staff. The flies are everywhere. The countertops look to be made of the dried remains of a million meals made previously and never wiped up. But the smells coming out are delicious….

Isaac was grumpy, sleepy and not hungry. He didn’t want any idli, uppama, or puri, all that was available (sadly no dosas, which have become a family favorite—these are thin savory pancakes, cooked crisp on one side, which you break apart and scoop up any number of possible sauces).

So I ordered uppama (a wheat-based oatmeal with pine nuts and other things) for Josephine and puri (deep fried pancakes) for myself. The waiter took down the order then turned his attention to Isaac, grasping him by the shoulders:

“What’s the matter, son? Are you not feeling well? You must eat! Listen to your father! You don’t want some delicious puri?” He said it in such a jolly way that Isaac perked up a little bit, but still refused to eat, though now smiling.

In a few minutes, the piping hot food came. It was delicious. Even the smells were so strong that Isaac became interested and “tasted” some of Josephine’s, eating the majority of it. Josephine ordered another uppama. In a few minutes, everything was devoured. The jolly waiter stuck around to admonish Isaac.

“You see, young master—you were hungry! That was good, eh? You want some more? Eat and grow up strong!” Advice accompanied by hand gestures.

The jolly waiter then introduced the kids to the cook, who happened to be having his break at the next table. “He is from Dindigul” (not far from Kodai). “He made your uppama. Good uppama, no?” A toothy grin and nod confirmed our cook’s best intentions towards our culinary experience.

As we sat drinking tea and waiting for 8am, the kids got their Nintendo games out. This attracted a crowd of waiters, all of whom wanted to see the gadgets in action. About five of them stood over Isaac’s shoulders watching him play Pokemon. None said a word. All were rapt with big smiles. If there was envy, it wasn’t apparent. It seemed to be innocent delight.

A woman with an odd look about her sat next to Isaac, pulled out a small cross made of pearls and rubbed on the screen of his game. Isaac didn’t flinch, so I asked her to please stop, which she did.

Total cost for a filling, delicious breakfast for three (including good sweet milk tea) was 24 rupees, about 60 US cents. The previous meal I had paid for was in JFK airport, at the Au Bon Pain. The indifferent sandwiches were $8 each. The cups of salty soup were $4 each. The total for a conservative snack for seven people was $54. The contrast was sharp.

At 8am sharp, we wrangled our way through the line at the reservations office, and bought 3 of the 5 last available seats in Second Class Two-tier AC. For those of you who don’t speak  Indianrailwayese, that means we had pretty nice seats. The air-conditioning meant that the windows were closed and mosquitoes would be few. This, not the temperature, was the best advantage of AC train cars. The “two-tier” meant that each cabin turned into four bunks (one up, one down). The less expensive grade was “three-tier.” In two-tier class, they gave us blankets and sheets, a lovely luxury. Finally, the “second class” is just an Indianism. There is no “Third Class” and the First Class cars are so rare as to be nearly impossible to find. So everything is “Second Class.”

Our tickets were very expensive by Indian standards—500 rs. (12 dollars) each for a  7 ½ hour train ride. We could have gotten second class non-AC bank seats for 40 rupees each. Out of the train station, tickets in hand, we caught an autorickshaw and were on our way to the beach.

This would be our fifth visit to Kovalam. The kids had a plan all laid out—lunch at the German Bakery with iced coffees certain shops to buy gifts for friends, swimming, etc.

We arrived to find glowering weather and the threat of rain. We walked to the beach to find the beach was gone. The waves were crashing up against the walkways, with only rocks below. All the sand had been washed away in the monsoon storms. Palm tree root balls lay on the beach like giant cat toys.

Then a squall rolled in and sent sheets of heavy rain onto us. We took refuge with some waiters under a sagging blue tarp and waited. It was just a bit cold. Wind and rain can make even 27 degrees (about 80 F) feel miserable. If the rain kept up, Kovalam would be no fun. Perhaps we could just hole up in the Swiss Café. But ten minutes later, the squall passed the sky brightened.

We first hit the German Bakery, since Isaac’s hunger had come fully awake, and he needed a cheese toast (American: “grilled cheese”) to function properly. We sat in the lovely open air restaurant, reading, listening to the waves and otherwise relaxing most deliciously. The sun came out and stayed out for the rest of the day. It was a treat.

“What happened to the beach?” I asked the waiter.

“Oh, monsoon take it away. Happens every year” was the unconcerned reply.

“And, how does it come back?”

“Workers bring new beach.”

Suddenly I had a vision of this process: hundreds of laborers carrying baskets of sand on their heads from trucks parked a half-mile away, dumping them on the rocks, turning and walking back. Repeat 1,000,000 times to recreate Kovalam beach for every “season.” I had always remarked that large portions of the beach didn’t have sand so much as a meal of broken up concrete, asphalt, brick and gravel. I now knew why. Large parts of the beach were made of fill.

We each ordered iced coffees (the “ice” is really ice cream, a big wad that sits on top of excellent cold cappuccino). They were delicious.

Isaac’s cheese toast came. It looked big and hot. I did what every parent has to do with an 8-year old:

“Isaac, be careful. The cheese toast is hot. Use a knife and fork so you don’t drop it on the floor.”

“Yes dad” said Isaac, nodding in agreement. He then picked up the cheese toast in his hands, stuffed it into his mouth, cried out in pain and spat it out on the floor.

Josephine started laughing so hard she couldn’t sit in her chair properly. I started laughing as well. Isaac got upset.

“But dad! It was really hot!” he whined. We laughed harder. Isaac looked glum. I tried to explain my warning, the funny juxtaposition, but to no avail. He had burnt his tongue and we were laughing at him. Laughter is a gentle discipline, but it is a form of discipline nevertheless. Poor kid. Another cheese toast later, he recouped his pride.

After haggling with some Kashmiri shopkeepers for this and that, we stopped at the Swiss café for a late lunch. Before the waiter could take our order, Isaac feel asleep leaning on the railing. I couldn’t rouse him to take his order. So we put a few benches together and laid him out. Jet lag was catching up with us. I needed a head-down moment or two. Josephine found the camera when I did.

As we drank excellent vegetable soup, we watched fifty or so men on the beach, all dressed in blue shorts and white T-shirts. Most were standing around, but others were practicing CPR on each other. No dummies: one pretended to be drowned while the other pretended to save him. When mouth-to-mouth was required, an evasive head twist was used, the lifesaving breath sent to one side.

A whistle blew, and they all took off their clothes, down to the skimpiest, see-throughiest Speedo-style swim gear I’ve seen. It was Chippendales on the Beach (I blushed to keep watching). Some flailed their arms around a bit. Groups of about 10 would walk out to where the water was waist deep, about 50 feet from shore, then swim back in with lots of rest-stops along the way when the water became so shallow they’d hit bottom. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were trying to accomplish, but the constant whistle made it look official.

When it came time to go, rousing Isaac turned out to be more than a simple problem.

“Wake up, young man, it’s time to go swimming.” We had about 2 hrs. left in Kovalam, just enough for a swim and a shower.

But Isaac would not wake up. I finally picked him up and sat him down upright, where he looked not a little sick. I worried and redoubled my efforts to rouse him.

“Isaac, are you all right?” He didn’t say a word. He hadn’t eaten much lunch, perhaps he was dehydrated.

“Isaac please take a drink.” No response. I pushed the bottle to his face, but he wouldn’t open his mouth. A few minutes of trying did no good. He would not drink.

“Isaac, do you understand what I’m saying?” No response.

“Can you speak, Isaac?” No response.

“How do you feel?” No response. He was awake, looking around and completely unresponsive. I began to get worried.

Perhaps his electrolyte balance was off. He had been sweating quite a bit as he slept. I knocked open a salt shaker, pried his mouth open and smeared salt on his tongue. I tried to get him to drink, but with not much success.

After fifteen minutes of this, right when I was considering getting him to a hospital, Isaac finally said something:

“Dad, leave me alone” in a tone of voice close to tears. Then I knew he was fine. One more parent annoying his child with too much concern. He just had a really hard time waking up.

We made our way to the Golden Sands hotel, where we’d stayed many times before. We were well known by the staff, so I figured we could ask to use the pool and shower up afterwards in a free room. No problem, said Mani; just 100 rs. for the three of us.

Sadly, an unchecked algae bloom gave the pool a curious shade of light green. I thought through all the possible diseases they cold contract from stagnant water in Kerala during the monsoon, including cholera and amoebic dysentery. I balanced these very real risks with the disappointment they’d suffer if they didn’t get to swim. Then I also considered how many years in prison I’d get for child endangerment if anyone in the States found out. So I made a mature, responsible decision:

“Kids, keep your heads above water” and we all jumped in.

It was lovely, very refreshing, and very green. The shower afterwards, I figured, probably came from the same water. But we used soap, so all would be well.

At about this point I looked at our train tickets. The date on them was 08/07/07. Suddenly I panicked. Did the month or date come first in India? Did I have tickets for August 7th or July 8th? Most of me argued that the month came first, that we would not be able to get on the train in an hour, that we’d have to spend the night in Kovalam. With that realization, I relaxed quite a bit. Oh well. What a terrible mistake. I’ll have the seared kingfish in garlic sauce, please.

I tried to ask Mani at the hotel desk, and got a wonderful run-around.

“When you write a date, is the month first or the day?”

“Yes sir.”

“You mean the month is first?” I tried to find a simpler way to phrase it.

“Yes sir.” I began to panic.

“So when you write the date, you write it like this….” And I wrote 08/07/07.

“Yes sir, that is today.” My heart leaped.

“So you write the day first, not the month?” I tried to confirm, but as usual, with doubts over what exactly I was confirming.

“Yes sir.”

“Could you write out August 7th?” Mani obliged, smiling at my complete idiocy. He wrote 07/08/07, and I breathed a substantial sigh. Mani even looked at my train ticket and confirmed without doubt the ticket was good for today.

Our train compartment was particularly clean, just the right AC temperature, and empty.  The kids climbed into their upper bunks and fell asleep almost instantly. They’d done a lot in the last 36 hrs. I slept fitfully, spending some time watching India go by out the window and alternately chatting up the steward. He was very impressed that we chose to live in India, seeing as we were American, and not freaks.

“I like India. It is a marvelous country,” I told him, focusing on the temples, the food, the friends and the endless eccentricities, without bringing to mind the crushing bureaucracy and corrupt governments, frightful poverty and disease. I felt it would be impolite. Too many times have I been assaulted by European tourists whose first words out of their mouths are “Bush Administration,” “Native American Genocide” and “Cultural Imperialism.” Couldn’t we just talk about baseball?

The steward swelled with pride.

“You make me very happy to hear this” the steward beamed. “I love my country, and know its problems, but there is much, much more to love.”

“We Tamils are an intellectual people. We are philosophers. Making money, that is futile when what is important is your spiritual, intellectual life. That cannot be bought in a store. We Tamils understand that.” I wondered how deep to turn the conversation, whether some simple jingoism was in order, or the exploration of the subtleties. But mostly I listened and enjoyed.

He asked about Kodaikanal, Connecticut, and where my wife was, and if she was Asian. I explained each in turn, to his satisfaction. As the train pulled into Madurai station, we ended on one of the most lovely contradictions of India:

“We Indians are a most mild people” he said. It was true. In my experience of a year and a half, while I had gotten angry with a few Indians, they had never shown anger to me. I had never even seen anger shown between two Tamils (except a pair of drunks on one odd occasion). Mild was definitely a characteristic of the Southerners. There was only the scene of stranded passengers in Kuwait to contradict him. OK, and the riots in Gujarat four years ago, and in Bombay a few years before that. Oh, and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka who are perhaps the most violent and ruthless guerrillas in the world.

The most mild and the most violent: it made a wonderful sense. And I thought to the many American contradictions; for one, the land of capitalistic individualism, corporate greed and careerism also gives the most to charity (as a percentage of income) of any nation in the world. What a wonderfully illogical lot we humans are.

“When you are next in Chennai, you will come and be my guest, stay with me and my family,” the steward called to me as we descended the train in Madurai.

“Thank you” I called back, and we made our way to the taxi stand, and home in Kodaikanal.

Don't Lean on me Man, this is Kuwait City

  Welcome to Kuwait City.

It is 1:55 in the morning.

It is 38 degrees Celsius.

Have a Nice Day.

The Kuwait Airlines Transit Desk Representative held the angry crowd at bay with aplomb and finesse. It was a pleasure to watch her at work, parrying attacks and questions like the finest martial arts master. Thirty people were yelling at her, demanding immediate satisfaction. With polite grace, she denied everyone anything beyond flights the next evening. Amazingly, she handled one person at a time in a clear and focused manner in spite of the din. I thought it was only a matter of time before she lost her balance and snapped at one of the more rude customers. Perhaps even throw boarding passes into the mob and stomp out fed up. But she never did.

“This is outrageous! I will bring legal action against this company! ” an elderly man shouted, leaning over the counter at the rep.

“Here is your boarding pass, sir, for tomorrow to Bombay where a Kuwait Airlines representative will give you’re your boarding pass on Jet Airways to Chennai” was the simple reply.

“I’m not going that way! Last time you lost my luggage! Jet was in a different airport! We nearly missed the connection since we were misdirected several times! No one knew how to get there! I’m not going through that again!”

“I’m sorry sir. This is the fastest connection to Chennai. There are no other flights until tomorrow evening.”

“Your company is run by thieves! Despicable thieves!”

“Sir” the rep cautioned very gently.

“You have to guarantee that my luggage will not be lost! You have to guarantee that we’ll make the connection!”

“We will do everything we can to ensure nothing is lost.”

“I demand to see the manager!”

“I’m sorry but there is no manager available right now.”

“This is outrageous! You are lying to me! The stewards lied to us too, saying our connections would wait! This is completely unacceptable!”

These exchanges didn’t go on for a few minutes. They lasted a full hour and a half, several running simultaneously. The representative never blinked. Never once did she raise her voice. Never once did she ask anyone to pipe down while she answered someone else’s question. Never once did she even look harried, though she projected an earnestness and concern for our plight throughout. It was fascinating to watch. I looked for some sign of strain, some evidence of wear and tear on her soul. There was none. It was a perfect mask.

Why didn’t I join the shouting? Everyone else was doing it for me. It would have been like firing a pistol to make noise during an atomic blast, a ridiculous and futile waste of energy. And I just didn’t feel like it. I had seen the flight schedule. There really were no other options that evening on Kuwait Airways. It was close to midnight. The airport was closing. We were among the last people there. Tomorrow, there might be a flight on another airline in the morning, but Kuwait Airways insisted there wasn’t. Perhaps they were lying, but I did not have the energy to query. Anyway, the representative looked to be more than my match. Whatever bluster I might try, I was sure she could defeat it easily. I contemplated the options, and decided that the next day’s Trivandrum flight was something worthwhile to obtain.

As a group, the 30 some stranded passengers were mostly Indian. They included an extended Sikh family who were returning to “Dili” (I have always enjoyed this particular pronunciation of “Delhi,” like “delete” without the final “t” sound, usually spoken quickly. It’s just a lovely sound). A very suave New York professional woman, her two badly misbehaved toddlers and her graying father were among the most outspoken at the Transit Desk. A shy Christian Tamil wearing a head scarf, with two very well-behaved kids in tow, barely raised her voice in the fray. She had a heavy Brooklyn accent, which made for a lovely juxtaposition of cultures. Also notable was a pair of well-dressed, very spoiled Bombayya teenagers who “just wanted to get hooom, man,” and slouched their way around the terminal, smoking with studied insouciance. Then there was me, the kids, and a bearded, barefoot aging hippie on his way to some Ashram.

I approached the representative, who was replying to one of the more upset Sikhs. She paused, and I saw my opportunity.

“Excuse me,” I observed in a calm, quiet voice, “but would it be possible to get on the Trivandrum flight tomorrow instead of the connection through Bombay to Chennai?” (The official name of the city is Thiruvananthapuram, but nobody outside of Kerala can pronounce it or find the energy to try, so it largely keeps it’s old and easier to say name, Tri-van-drum).

Without looking up, the rep nodded, hastily scrawled a note then continued her engagement with the furious Sikh. She was so fast, I wasn’t sure what she had done, or what it meant. So I got a bit closer to try and see. On the counter in front of her was a pile of boarding passes. On top of the pile was mine, and a note on it that read: “Req 3 p. TRI flight tomorrow.” That was impressive. Without asking, she knew my name and that I had two kids with me. I went back to my seat and watched the carnival continue.

The sorriest case was a fat fellow on the way to his wedding.

“My wedding begins in Chennai tomorrow morning,” he said in an even tone, “I must be there. I don’t care what it costs. I will pay First Class, but I must get there. I cannot miss my own wedding.”

That quieted the crowd for a moment or two. This was an unthinkable problem. Indian weddings cannot be postponed, stopped or even slightly delayed. They are huge freight trains of events, massive supertankers at full throttle. Brakes and steering are not part of their design. A wedding might host a thousand or more guests and last several days with multiple ceremonies (a friend at work once told me her wedding hosted 2500 guests. Her family prepared food for months in advance). If the groom—or even bride—didn’t show up, well, the wedding probably still went on. There wasn’t much anyone could do, except perhaps hope nobody noticed the missing groom. Or maybe they’d hire a stand in.

The professional woman from New York commented to me that her husband had also been delayed on his return to India for their wedding, but he only missed one of the minor ceremonies. A certain click of the tongue suggested that complete forgiveness had not been achieved.

Referring to the panicked groom hovering over the Transit desk, she continued:

“My husband didn’t cut it so close, like this nutcut. Who would trust an airline to get you there on time?” she asked very rhetorically, rolling her eyes.

I looked closely at the would-be groom. His face didn’t seem to match his plight. He hadn’t broken a sweat, hadn’t furrowed a brow. He might as well have been telling a waitress that his hamburger was a bit cool, and might she do something about it. I chalked this feeling up to a cultural gap I didn’t understand. I would be screaming at the top of my lungs. Waving my arms about. Lifting up on my toes to make a point. Crying, sobbing, demanding. Perhaps this boast is merely the product of eleven years of marriage. I know my wife reasonably well, and know what a missed-marriage ceremony would mean to her.

But in spite of the social wreckage caused by Kuwait Airways and the delays in JFK and Heathrow, I also felt sorry for the rep taking the unrelenting abuse. The delay wasn’t her fault; but still, as the airline’s representative, she needed to hear it. In a perfect world, she would pass along the general dissatisfaction to managers who listened. But in Kuwait Airways’ case…. who knew?

On our way to find a drinking fountain, the kids and I discovered a MacDonalds.  I thought the neon Arabic script had a funny quality about it, but perhaps this is due to my sheltered life. It had just never seen it before. It’s not the image of the Arab world one tends to see, though the Gulf States are earning a reputation for absurd materialism, from indoor ski slopes to the Burj hotel. A moment’s thought about it both gave me hope (that the Middle East would one day have only the problems of commercialization) and dismay (one more culture moving toward global homogeneity) in the same breath.

What most caught my attention in the airport was the physiognomy of the soldiers wandering about and staffing the gates. They were all rail thin, short, and very Arab in appearance. They looked nothing like the tall and superiorly pudgy Kuwaitis I had met on the plane. Was the Army outsourced like all other labor in Kuwait? The airline staff looked mostly Southeast Asian—Philippinas, Malaysians, Indonesians. One of the stewards was Lebanese. The hotel cleaning staff was mainly Bangladeshi. The desk clerks were all Southeast Asian. But the army? There is a lot of historical precedence for small states hiring armies, from the dreaded Hessians of the American Revolutionary War to the Switzers of the Vatican. And I never found the courage to ask one where he was from. My gut instinct is to avoid all (other than the most necessary) contact with soldiers in countries with weak judiciaries.

Everyone in the airport except the passengers seemed to smoke. The soldiers at the gates smoked while on duty. None of the airlines staff smoked on duty, but lit up as soon as they were out from behind the desk. Only the Bangladeshi cleaners didn’t smoke. Instead, they sold use of their cell phones for about $5 a minute to the desperate stranded passengers.

All the public smoking looked really odd. You just don’t see it indoors in the West. And you don’t see it in India. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Indian soldier or policeman smoke. Indian airports also seem smoke free.

There was another curious pattern. Sensibly, soldiers would chuck their lit cigarettes on the floor if a superior approached. But then the superior would unfailingly light up while speaking to the inferior. This happened between the luggage manager and Transit Desk staff as well. Smoking seemed to be a sure sign of authority. I wondered how many managers didn’t like to smoke, but had to as part of their job. And this seemed why the Bangladeshi cleaners didn’t smoke. Nobody was lower than them so there was no opportunity.

At about 1 am, another Kuwait Airways rep held up all our passports and asked us to accompany him to “The Visa Desk.” We would be staying in town, and so needed entry visas for Kuwait. After an interminable wait, we each received a page of Arabic script. I looked at our three for some intelligible sign. All I could find were initials spaced evenly across the top:

S                               P

On the other:

I                               P

On the last:

J                               P

Did the Arabic script elsewhere on the page contain our full names, or were we to be known only by our initials to the Kuwaiti Security Forces? It was a marvelous kind of anonymity: official yet indecipherable, and thereby very bureaucratic.

The time wore on. People sat around chatting, waiting to get to the hotel. I saw an opportunity. Back at the Transit Desk, the harried representative was still arguing with the would-be groom, who seemed to think he could still get on a plane to India at 1:30 am. Fatigue was just beginning to show in her face. Perhaps she had relaxed after the angry mob had gone. I caught her attention.

“Excuse me, but earlier I asked to transfer to the Trivandrum Flight. The kids and I would get home sooner, as we live the same distance from Chennai as Trivandrum. Kuwait would save some money, as we wouldn’t have fly Jet Airways.” Then I went for the jugular: “And it would be really great to get the kids home sooner. It would mean a lot to them.”

She stared back at me without saying anything for a moment.

“I’ll do what I can and let you know in the morning” was her reply.

It was nearly 2 am when we exited the airport, exhausted, and the heat hit us hard. I stared at the Airport’s Welcome sign telling us it was 1:55 am and 38 degrees Celsius (about 100 degrees Fahrenheit). There were two vans waiting for us. Everyone lunged for the doors as if a rock concert’s doors had just flung open. Laden down with luggage, the kids and I were slow. The first bus filled up before we could get near. We moved towards the other bus, but we were last in line and it filled before we could make it in. We were left standing on the curb, along with the second slowest passenger—the fat fellow who was missing his marriage.

 

The rep made a call on his cell phone and a few seconds later a taxi pulled up.

This was my first Kuwaiti taxi, so you must excuse my surprise. But I was surprised. It was not a dented New York yellow cab with a filthy back seat. It was not a tired Ambassador. It was a brand new black 500 series Mercedes. The driver wore a uniform with gold epaulettes. He loaded our luggage into the trunk, and opened the rear doors for us. The would-be groom took the front passenger seat. Looking around, I noted about five of them waiting by a stand. I concluded that there wasn’t much in the way of budget tourism in Kuwait.

The kids’ eyes lit up as they clambered in the back. The leather seats were soft, lovely and fully adjustable. They immediately set to work playing with the controls, increasing and decreasing their lumbar support, flipping the headrests back and forth and raising and lowering their seat height. The would-be groom played with his camcorder, filming through the windshield as we drove. We agreed it would be a good idea to provide substantial evidence to his family and wife-to-be that he actually was stranded in Kuwait City. He filmed the passing billboards, palm trees and the giant radio tower as we drove. I recognized the tower from TV footage of the ‘91 war with Iraq.

I had an odd thought. At the time of the war, I was a student teacher in Bratislava, Slovakia. I would sit up late at night with my host family, the Pauliks, and watch CNN. If Mr. Paulik had predicted, “Strother, one day you will drive past that tower in a Mercedes with your two children,” I would not have believed him. If he had predicted anything, what would I have believed?

The hotel turned out to be a glass-and-steel Sheraton, the lobby blessed with the smiles of three happy Sheiks looking down from portraits above the Money Exchange desk.

The Manager read us the rules: we each had a three minute phone call anywhere in the world, free sandwiches through room service, buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day, and the free use of the hotel facilities, including a pool, fitness gym and sauna. I love saunas, but paused for a moment over that one. Isn’t just standing outside at noon in Kuwait City the equivalent of a sauna? Perhaps some guests couldn’t wait for noon. I wondered if there were hotels in Northern Siberia that boasted full AC. The universe would only become balanced if there were.

The angry crowd wasn’t so angry any more. There were a few grunts of approval, and “nice place” comments as we headed en masse to the elevators. The sixth-floor hallway was impressively Art Deco: curved walls, blond veneer, and tasteful carpet. It could have been Manhattan .

The room was not huge, but “nicely appointed” as the phrase goes, with a giant hair drier installed next to the mirror in the bedroom, a bidet and television volume control in the bathroom, and a Koran and prayer carpet in the bedside table drawer.

My daughter discovered the complementary shower cap. My son discovered the walk-in shower and played with the controls. They had a ball.

Room service consisted of two crisply liveried butlers, polite to an extreme, who brought us a pair of club sandwiches at 3 am. They were toasted, still warm and exceedingly delicious. We didn’t ask, but they were accompanied by cans of coke. The kids consequently stayed up till dawn watching Mickey Mouse in Arabic on the TV. I slept the sleep of the dead, the first time I could stretch out flat on a mattress in over 2 days.

I awoke at dawn as the kids fell asleep, and watched the sun rise over a tan-gray city. Mixed in among typical European concrete modern horrors were mosques and forts. What struck me first was the lack of color, perhaps in contrast to India. the fort was a pale tan. The mosque a reddish brown. The skyscrapers gray and steel. The sky was a drained blue gray. Perhaps it was reflecting my jetlagged state.

I left the kids snoozing and explored the hotel. There were three towers at the Sheraton. We had been lodged, I thought, in the down-scale one. Our breakfast buffet was located in the slightly better tower, down an Italian marble passageway, past the Italian marble elevators, and through the Italian marble foyer. Highly colorful marble had been splashed around the place with the clear aesthetic goal of “Make It Say Marble.”  

Most odd was a small shrine to the 91 war, showing the gutted reception area and burned out exterior of the building we were standing in. I guess all this marble had replaced the marble stolen by the Iraqis. I wondered where the original marble had ended up .

Breakfast was staffed by two waiters in black tie who insisted on pouring my coffee, sugaring it, and stirring it for me. The thirty-foot long buffet featured several unidentifiable dishes (sadly without nameplates) which I assumed were of local color, rice, Indian dal and sambar, then the full Western palate, from scrambled eggs and toast to corn flakes and sausages (which I presumed were not pork, though their taste was, well, porky).

When the kids arose from the dead, we set out and explored the hotel. We found two separate fitness centers (one male, the other female it seemed) stuffed with exercise equipment from running machines to step machines and other machines that suggested the exercise of muscles I swear I don’t have. Again, the kids jumped on them and had a blast.

Finally, we found the outdoor pool. It was 1pm and sunny. The kids ran outside, from a very cool air-conditioned 24 (75 F) degree hotel interior to the predicted high of 48 (118 F). It was a hammer blow to the face as I walked outside. The kids didn’t mind and gleefully hit the pool. My plan had been to read while they swam, but my head swam in the heat as I sat in the shade poolside. Occasionally I had to dunk my head in the pool to maintain coherent thought. My hair dried in minutes.

Back in the hotel, I got a call from the front desk, that we were to leave an hour earlier than the rest because we were on the Trivandrum flight. Hallelujah.

“A G M C will pick you up.” Hmmm, I wondered what that was but figured it must be comfortable to be used in Kuwait.

Our liveried driver this time was from Kerala. A chatty fellow, who conducted the (again) black and brand new Suburban with (again) tan leather seats down the highway at ridiculous speeds, well above 150 kph.

Check in at the airport was without a hitch, except for the troublesome porters who simply steal your luggage and expect you to find, then pay them for the service .

The flight was indeed packed this time. Not a single spare seat. Not long into the flight my daughter commented:

“Dad, there aren’t any women on the plane.”

I looked up and around. She was right. There were perhaps two or three female faces. All the rest were men. They were almost all temporary workers in Kuwait, going home to their families instead of flying anywhere with their families. None of them were smiling. Their lives apart in Kuwait were hard ones, for sure.

Without a hitch or delay, we landed in Trivandrum right on time. A rickety old truck with a ladder on its back belched and sputtered its way to the side of the Airbus, and let us descend onto the wet tarmac. The worn steps were slippery, and one passenger descended the last five on his back. It was 4:45am, pitch black and wet. The air was heavy but not hot. The stench of rotting things, diesel and some sweet spice hit our noses. The monsoon was in full swing in Kerala. It felt good to be back in India.

Getting on the Plane and Getting off the Plane

Apologies, but I have another long blog to offer. I’ll break it up into three parts, each somewhat independent, so you can pick and choose.

The first part has to do simply with getting on an airplane from the US back to India. It’s one the more boring blogs I’ve written, so skip through it if you like. It’s more of a therapy session for me.

The second is about our unexpected holiday in Kuwait City.

The third involves thoughts on our return to India, through Trivandrum, Kovalam Beach and Madurai.

The last two I think will be a bit spicier than the first. And I have pictures for them.

…

Getting on the plane

Getting back on the plane to India was not simple. I’m not sure what to make of our difficulties. We all wanted to go back, but perhaps some subconscious desire to stay manifested itself through Kuwait Airways.

It all began with an early morning email with the subject line “nervous.” I was from my wife who was back in India. And as she is generally very level-headed and not prone to overreact, I became nervous. After I read the note, I moved beyond nervous into semi-hysterical. And with some due cause, I assert, (trying to maintain my dignity).

The note was to the point: Kuwait Airways had cancelled our children’s airline tickets back to India because we had not “reconfirmed” 72 hrs. prior to departure. It was a non-negotiable cancellation. My ticket was fine—reconfirmed and all—so I could fly to India. But the kids couldn’t. And our flight was the next day.

Our travel agent’s advice was to call the New York office and, well, request that the kids’ tickets be “reinstated.” It shouldn’t be a problem, she consoled—but I knew better. My deep modern sense of paranoia was shouting from inside “This Is The End! It’s All Over! This Is A Life-Defining Disaster! Run! Hide! You’ll Never Fix This! The Kid’s College Fund Will Be Devoured Fixing It! But It Can’t Be Fixed!”

The New York office opened in two hours, so to avoid insanity, I ran around the house and did pushups until I collapsed, unable to breathe. This was a good strategy, because as I lay there gasping the situation clarified tremendously and I understood it in entirety: we were entering a world of pain and it was time to panic.

How on earth had I been “reconfirmed” but not the kids? My travel agent in Kodaikanal “reconfirmed” us before my very eyes. He had said “Yes sir. All set sir.” He wouldn’t lie. Why would he? And how on earth does an airline get away with canceling tickets three days before you fly? Wasn’t “reconfirmation” something of a joke? In all my years of business travel, I never once “reconfirmed.” I just showed up with the ticket. And wasn’t the cancellation penalty somewhat extreme? Why weren’t they just threatening to bump us from the flight? Were they serious about the cancellations? How much would all this cost? When, if ever, would we get back to India? And how should I go about arguing with the clerks on the phone? What leg should I try to stand on? Would the truth sway anyone? That we did confirm and they messed up? And what tactic should I take? Anger? Humble Pleading? Level-headed logic? Threats?

While the tickets were not expensive (an amazing $800 for a round trip Chennai-JFK) it was still real money. The cost of buying same-day one-way tickets for the kids to fly to India was going to be considerably more. And if the kids couldn’t get on my flight, then I’d have to get a new ticket too. The worst-case scenarios swirled in my head.

I looked up the New York office’s telephone number on Kuwait Airways website and called it. The number was out of service. Perhaps they were so busy canceling children’s tickets they didn’t have time to update their website. So I called the 800 directory, and got another number. That too was out of service. Perhaps they didn’t want to speak to their customers. Too many complaints I suppose. Or is it that they keep moving offices to avoid paying rent? Finally, somehow, I got a local number in New Jersey, and called it, right after 9am.

“We are sorry, but the Kuwait Airways office is now closed. Our operating hours are 9 to 5….” And then I realized it was July 4th, the most sacred American holiday. I was sure the office was entirely closed, perhaps for the rest of the week. We were doomed. The prospect of driving to JFK to even begin our argument was grim.

I searched further for a JFK terminal desk number, without success. So I tried the Jersey number again, hoping for a menu of alternatives, even alternate phone numbers. And they picked up.

I was helped by an efficient clerk who explained the fine print on the back of the ticket in excellent, monotonous detail, finally “reminding” me that we had the lowest class of ticket, the dreaded “B” class, which was non-refundable, non-returnable, non-transferable and not quite worth the red carbon paper on which it was printed. He said they would “see what they could do” in a tone that suggested Royal privilege, and that I should call back after 1 pm. I hardly got a question in edgewise.

I spent the time reading through the fine print on the back of the ticket, looking for the phrase “Kuwait Airways will honor this ticket only if we feel like it.” But I didn’t find it.

A second call produced a much more sympathetic clerk who didn’t read any of the fine print on the back of the ticket. The conversation began on a high note, as she told me the kids’ tickets had been “reinstated.” It was now seemed to be just a matter of getting them on a flight. I had the odd feeling of gratitude for something that deserved anger.

I was told that the flight was “full” and there was a long waitlist, almost as big as the whole flight. The kids were on the lowest class of ticket, the dreaded “B” class. This meant the kids were at the bottom of a long Totem Pole: Top Man Get On Plane. Low Man Not.

But there was hope: The slightly more personal “let me see what I can do” was followed by furious keyboard clicking accompanied by grunts and sighs and other noises suggesting a good fight. I imagined her penetrating screen after screen of indecipherable Matrix-like characters aiming for the “Reinstate Kids” screen.

But she didn’t get there. The best she could offer was a confirmation (but not reconfirmation) for all three of us on July 12. Oh, and there was a $172 fee, since the kids had to be “upgraded” to a more respectable “M” class ticket to get on that flight. Same seat, same service, bigger price. I asked to speak to a supervisor, but he, she or it was too busy and would call me back.

Several martinis made the rest of July 4th a happy blur. As I fell asleep, I calculated what a July 12 return would mean to my work at school and to the children. With that ticket we should arrive at Kodaikanal on the evening of the 14th, having missed all the school orientation and professional sessions. Classes began on the 17th. We would still be badly jetlagged.

When I was younger I didn’t notice jetlag that much. It was simply a matter of sleeping at strange times for a while. But on my return to the US in June, it hit me in the oddest way. My sleep patterns didn’t change much at all. I drove without trouble on the night I got back. I recognized my surroundings, knew who everyone was, and conversed easily. But then….

It was during a conversation about politics with a good friend when he brought up the Spanish Civil War. I primed my mind with what I remembered about it, but brought up the Spanish-American War file instead.

He talked about Fascism and Communism, the Republic, the failure of the European democracies to react as they should have. I talked about the rise and fall of empires, the Philippines, Cuba and Teddy Roosevelt. We must have spoken for five minutes before I realized our cross-purposes. He started to cock eyebrows at me now and again, and I wondered what I had said to cause concern.

I did not want to have a similar episode while teaching. My students would be a whole lot less sympathetic, though I think they’d find it enjoyable.

July 5th began with a hearty breakfast and a call to Kuwait Airlines. I was close to memorizing their phone number.

Overnight the kids had made it onto the July 5th JFK-Kuwait flight in “M” class, but not onto the Kuwait-Chennai flight. The “miracle” had occurred, which suggested that earlier information from Kuwait Airways was not as dire as presented, but I was too happy with the “progress” to mind much. Thus far so good, but I thought how my wife might respond if I arrived home without the kids and said “No problem, honey, they’re just on a layover in Kuwait City. They have confirmed tickets for the 12th.” How long would her look of incomprehension last, and how much trouble would I really be in, I wondered.

By noontime, the second miracle occurred: the kids were on both flights. Now there was only remaining the $86 per ticket surcharge. I began to sniff a bit of a rat.

I called and got a fifth clerk, who could do nothing but give me a “Customer Service Representative.” I called the number, explained my situation to someone who sounded less rule-bound than the standard clerk. I made the point that we had paid for these seats and did not even have the opportunity to use them before they were taken away. Even if Kuwait Airways didn’t fly us, they still had my money. This argument made sense to him, though “it’s not the way the airlines work” was his sympathetic reply. He suggested I write a letter to a Mr. Murthy in Chennai. Perhaps the fee could be reimbursed.

Was this reconfirmation thing just a ruse to extort more money out of their dreaded “B” class passengers? I abandoned the thought. Too many friends wallow in corporate conspiracies, defining their lives by the menacing plots that surround them daily. So much of it it bunk, outside of the occasional Enron.

At the JFK check-in counter, the rep told me “I have a note to collect $70. Pay at the Ticketing Desk” Seventy? It has gone down $16? I didn’t argue: perhaps the Customer Service Representative had reduced the pain somewhat.

We checked in, found the Ticketing Desk, and attempted to pay. She asked for $70. I asked if that was for both tickets. She said yes. I was sure she was wrong, but was not going to argue the point with her. After all, as the money person, she had a right to reduce the fee.

I offered my VISA card, but was told they only accepted American Express. In 1990, I wouldn’t have blinked. Many stores were AMEX only. But in 2007? It was hard to find a business that took AMEX at all. But then what do I know of Kuwait and their business practices.

My sister came to the rescue and offered her AMEX, since I did not have one. Then it took the clerk over 15 minutes to process the $70 charge. The process involved three paper forms, a sliding imprint machine, her driver’s license, and no computers. In 2007 I can pay for groceries and gas in 0.5 seconds by swiping a card through a magnetic reader. But at Kuwait Airways, everything is still done as perfected in1970. Task accomplished. she gave us a receipt and we fetched our boarding passes.

At the gate, the Rep who checked us in approached and asked for the credit card again. It seems the Ticketing Desk clerk had forgotten to take an “imprint” of the card. I explained that it was my sister’s card and she had left the airport. So they took her phone number. Later I learned the Ticketing Desk clerk had left a message with a return phone number but no contact name. My sister called back, got the Lost Baggage department and nobody who knew anything about nobody from a Ticketing Desk.

Perhaps by the same rule that we lost two of our three tickets for not reconfirming, Kuwait Airways lost their upgrade fines for not taking an imprint of the card. It would be somewhat appropriate. Or they could put out a warrant for my sister’s arrest. Time will tell.

Getting off the Plane

Once on the plane, Kuwait Airways is relatively pleasant. Every seat has a mini-TV with a selection of many movies to watch, news, music and the ubiquitous live-flight information channel. The crews are attentive and professional. They don’t hassle you about walking around to stretch your legs. In fact they encourage it by putting out a buffet at the back of the plane. You want water? some fruit? a sandwich? A soda? Just get up and fetch one from the back. It’s a nice setup.

Not surprisingly, there were at least twenty open seats all the way to Kuwait City. “Fully Booked” this flight was indeed not.

Our departure from JFK was delayed two hours. We didn’t make up the time (perhaps due to the 110 mph headwind). The mini-TVs for my kids’ seats didn’t work (some previous passenger had torn the wires out of the controls), but they shared mine and didn’t complain. At Heathrow, we all had to get down, go through security and get back on the plane. This took us 1 ½ hrs.

Back in our seats as we waited, the crew made ceaseless calls for six missing passengers. It seems they had gone into the security line, and had not emerged. Heathrow Security then searched the plane for them, to no avail. They had been lost and could not be retrieved. Another hour went by as they removed their luggage from under the plane.

Five hours late out of Heathrow, I knew would miss our connection to India. In spite of reassurances that “your connection will wait” from the crew, I leafed through the Flight Schedule (handily in the pocket of every seat…). I discovered the connecting flights to Chennai were only three times weekly. We’d have to wait 48 hrs. for the next flight. But there was a 22:35 flight to Trivandrum which we might just be able to catch. Trivandrum was nowhere near Chennai, but it was about the same distance to Kodai. Plus, Kovalam beach was 20 minutes south of Trivandrum, offering a great place to wait for a train.

We arrived in Kuwait City at 11:15 pm. Indeed, we had missed our flight to Chennai which had left on time, 2 ½ hours earlier. At the transit desk, I begged to get on the Trivandrum flight, but it was also “fully booked” and anyway the gate was closing. So sorry.

I was asked for my passport and was handed a boarding pass for a flight to Bombay the next day, fully 24 hrs. later. We were then supposed to transfer to a Jet Airways flight to Chennai. The total time to Chennai would be just over 36 hrs. I then sat down and watched as the other Indian-bound passengers approached the transit desk.

As news filtered through the crowd, the level of anger grew. I’ve never seen an angrier crowd of Indians in my life. They shouted abuse at the Kuwait Airways Representative and demanded immediate attention, all thirty of them.

“The stewards told us the flights would wait!”

“You’ve lied to us!”

“This is completely unacceptable! You should have booked us on other carriers!”

“Last time you did this to us, Jet Airways lost all my luggage!”

“I paid $480 extra to get on this flight. This is an outrage!”

“How can you strand us like this!”

“I’m going to miss my marriage if I don’t get to Chennai tonight!”

But there were no other carriers flying to Chennai that night. The Indian bound flights all left between 9 pm and 11:30 pm. There was nothing until the next day.

So we were destined to have a short holiday in Kuwait City.