Day 43. I stop by the Hindustan Times and explain my ticket problem to her reporter Mr. [name missing in original], an 18 year veteran. He was good enough to accompany me to the DTDC office, where we listened to a series of counter-explanations and excuses, none of which contributed to a solution. My request for compensation got nowhere until my companion introduced himself. I got 100 rupees compensation, nothing really for the trouble they caused, but enough to put the fear of God in them that they could be held responsible for bad behavior.
I am not satisfied and I think only the reporter's presence instilled any measure of activity on the company, who (in earlier negotiations) had attempted to wait me out. The reporter shared my interest in armaments. So, with spotty exceptions, I was only too happy to clear of Delhi. The tax collector [at the airport] asked why a smile as I paid 100 rupee departure fee. Because I would gladly have paid twice that to get out of that rathole. It's it was a seven-hour wait in the Palam Airport, where you suffer another multitude of indignities. Including a Calgarian oil worker and myself asked to leave the lounge because our tickets were “the wrong class”. The overpriced joint (one dollar for imitation cola) was for First-Class, Executive, Youth and Royal Orchid, But Not for Cabin or Excursion class, no less.
The paperwork [a leaving India] can stymie people, often relating back to those flimsy receipts acquired at arrival. For instance, you cannot take Indian money out of the country, but you cannot cash in what you have without that Sanskrit card you initially bought the rupees with, none of which was explained in advance. Surprise.
[Author's note: the following happened a day or two back but it was the long airport wait that gave me a chance to reflect. Ponder the following before you travel to India. Bear in mind I did not like India and am not likely to flatter the place. Betel is a mild narcotic the men chew, and are all stoned by the afternoon. The spittoons begin to fill up and get pretty steamy by the same time. The city is clean but a bus can vomit out black diesel smoke any time.]
The hucksters are persistent and obnoxious. They urinate in the open streets. Building corners are spittoons for those ugly Betel leaves they chew. They live like dogs because that's how they treat each other (and you). Although clean, the city is no pollution or sanitary standards. For all the evil that can be said about colonialism, compassion is still largely a European trait.
I found a side street and the bazaar. Bartering, although allowed, can be a trying experiment, with a lot of useless replies about how much it would cost you in America. I watched a lot of cottage industries. Folding furniture, steamer trunks, guitars/sitars, beds, cabinets, cloth, leather and coffins. Also, harmoniums, and the owner gave her recital for me. Very nice. The coffins were at a cemetery you will find if you take a wrong turn. I admit, I get my worst feelings of loneliness on rainy seashores and old cemeteries but this place was some else.
Here was the Nehru Christian Grounds. It was once a good site, but the slums of grown around it. [That's the graveyard is now bricked in on all four sides with only a alleyway to get inside. The houses face outward, but they often chip a brick out of the back wall and stuff their garbage out where it begins to form mounds in the cemetery.] They throw garbage right out onto the graves from reeking tenements. Gravestones with dates late 1883 in this forgotten place, dusty and crumbling. I doubt any Europeans have lived nearby for generations. As the graveyard got used you encounter rows of tiny plots (baby graves) the reflected when famines or epidemics swept the area. The cemetery is still in use, but with no apparent upkeep.
No, the Indian check-in clerk says, I cannot have a window seat, although I'm fourth in line. Strange, because when I got on board I had all three seats to myself and after 19 hours without sleep, I stretched out across all three. Not so fast. I never wake a sleeping person unless their life is in danger, it's unfair. Although the plane was mostly empty I was besieged by people who kept waking me up. It was the strangest thing. People who preferred non-smoking, or people who wanted a better view of the movie, or ladies wanting places to park a screaming baby would wake me up and want to sit next to me. The rows in front and back of me were vacant. When you wake people up so you can watch a movie, you've been in India to long.
I decided to let them take their lumps like everybody else. I folded down the end table and pinned a note on my shirt saying, “Do not bother me.”
