Images of India - 1: Flying in

It begins at the gate.

I'm at Gate 39 in Frankfurt airport, sitting amongst other passengers, glancing occasionally at the newspaper on my lap, and staring, at other times, through the glass panel at the dull-colored airplane blending into a backdrop of grey sky. An announcement over the loudspeaker instantly triggers some people to stand up and walk towards the entrance; it turns out not to be a boarding announcement, but the people - all Asians, it seems to me at this distance - do not return to their seats. A few minutes later another announcement requests everyone to be seated: the boarding will not begin for at least another ten minutes. No one budges. After fifteen minutes or so we are asked to board in the order of our seat numbers; the rear of the aircraft is to be filled first. A long queue gathers behind this crowd already standing there. There is no room for those holding the appropriate seat numbers as the ones in front do not make way. The next section of the aircraft is now asked to board; more people queue up, but since the entrance is blocked few can make it into the aircraft. I find my irritation growing, but the Europeans around me are calm and polite: they simply wait. The situation lasts for a while. It takes much longer than usual to board the plane.

Inside the aircraft, just as we are about to settle into our seats next to the window, a lady from the middle section asks if we could let her have the window seat; it would help her baby, she says, else the baby would disturb everyone around. My wife, who loves the window seat and requests one for each flight, is upset. After a bit of indecision she agrees to the exchange, and we move into the middle section. We talk about it for a while, and both of us cannot understand what problems the baby would've had sitting where we were now. We should not give in so easily, wife tells me. I tell her that she would be feeling worse if she had refused the seat.

After the take-off entertainment channels are turned on. There are movies in the several languages, a few TV serials and documentaries. I choose a channel and push my seat back.

Hey! Hey! What are you doing?!! Move your seat up - I cannot see anything on my screen!!

It is a lady behind me, with a thick Bengali accent. Her assault has me dumbstruck - without thinking, I pull up my seat. It takes me a few seconds to realize that she can push back her seat as well, to maintain her distance from the screen. Before I can decide on how to tell her this, she taps me on my shoulder and asks me to move over to the empty seat a little away where there is no-one sitting behind. I can stand it no longer - I push my seat back and tell her that if she wants to look at the screen she should do the same.

I think back to Gate 39, and muse over how things changed after that.  Europe - in its essence, attitude and behavior - ends at the gate; the India experience starts well before you cross its physical boundaries.

This is just the beginning, I tell myself.

Comments

[Kahini]

*Shakes head*

We are a selfish bunch, aren't we?

[Rash]

Oh totally. We are a selfish bunch. I was almost pushed off the escalator at Delhi airportcoz I took a bit of time adjusting sleeping baby and diaper bag.

[Srix]

I agree that we Indians (a laaaarge fraction of us at least) can be as obnoxious as you say. But I wouldn't say that all "Europeans" to be saints. Mostly Germans in my experience are pretty decent bunch - even if they are annoyed they try their best to be civil. But other Europeans ... I am not sure. I have had some irritating experiences with Europeans as well.
Of course, statistically we are a screwed bunch !

[taks]

you said it ... "the India experience" definitely starts right from the boarding of the plane ... from then on you can feel right at 'home' ! :-)

[alpha]

tsk tsk, i think for me The Indian Experience started in Europe itself..Germany infact...the exact time Padosan was forced upon unsuspecting people.

[Kahini]

Uh, Parmanu... After reading Rash and then reading Alpha, I have a confession to make. I haven't seen Padosan.

[alpha]

kahini, say goodbye to your blissful days of thinking padosan might have been a good movie.

..and of days where you thought Parmanu was not capable of harm.

[Kahini]

Alpha, you think if I bribed Parmanu with a big, fat, FREE copy of Sacred Games he'd let me off the Padosan hook?

[Parmanu]

My intention here was to describe how I felt at that time (right now, viewing the episodes from this distance, I find myself amused by the events, which was not how I felt when I experienced them).

I try to avoid analysis (that is left to the reader), but if I were to look for reasons behind such behaviour, here is how I would see it: The first episode exhibits what we can call "scarcity mentality" - we are always trying to "be the first" because of a general feeling that there isn't enough for everyone. The second episode is related to our notion of personal space: as a community we feel closely knit and this makes us do things to others which seem strange in other cultures, like requesting for someone's seat, or asking for a book someone is holding (A German would usually not do that). The third…well, that was just how she was as an individual - we can find such (hilarious) characters everywhere.

@Srix: I loved the line "Statistically, we are a screwed bunch!" Well, statistics is what leads us to stereotyping people, isn't it ?

@Alpha: So Padosan set the theme - a promise of fun, followed by bitter dissappointment, and surrounded by sadistic laughter - for that India trip ?! No wonder you didn't write anything about it.

@Kahini: How did you guess I was looking for a copy of Sacred Games ?!

[Kahini]

Well Parmanu, you've just read Maximum City. Sacred Games appears to be part of an I Love Bombay trilogy - the other is Shantaram.