Whew! Smells like someone's passage.
I was expecting landing in Mumbai to be like landing in Bangkok
Landing in Bangkok involves a certain amount of violence. The cool, dry air of the plane is so different from the heavy, hot, wet air outside, that it rushes in the second the seal of the door is broken. You expect a chemical reaction. You really feel it when you're standing at the door's threshold, about to de-plane -- for a moment, you almost think the graciously smiling and wai-ing flight attendants are seeing you off by garlanding you with a dripping wet fur stole. As much as I love Thailand, it's a moment when I'm always seriously tempted to step back on the plane.
Mumbai wasn't like that at all. It was hot, but normal-hot, not hot-as-an-
introduction-to-a-whole-new-way-of-being-hot hot. Nor -- the subject-line joke I was unable to resist aside -- did it particularly smell of anything, even though I'd been warned to expect that to be my first impression. (To be fair, I've smelled the distinctive eau de Bombay upon every subsequent arrival, including when returning from other parts of India. Moreover, I remained blissfully unaware of the separate scents of Colaba and Kemp's Corner for about two weeks, until the veil was abruptly ripped from my nostrils one evening downtown, and I felt like I was drowning in a giant latrine. Since these odors are kinda hard to miss, all I can assume is that I had some kind of temporary excitement-induced anosmia. Anyone know how to re-induce it?)
Strangely enough, I do remember the smell of the airport, which was of the kind of disinfectant used in junior high school bathrooms or in campgrounds, and is always an artificially bright green. The airport itself was low-ceilinged and drab, with stern little notices in 1970's-type fonts, in Hindi and English, about just about everything. The whole set-up had the feel of being not quite permanent.
I was pleased to see there was a "diplomat" counter at Immigration. However, about three seconds later, I was overtaken by a crowd of Indians -- I figured they couldn't *all* be diplomats -- making a beeline for it. I grabbed K and we jumped in the fray.
We were met just outside Immigration by C. C has a somewhat unusual name that could be male or female. In our initial email correspondence, when I asked C what I could bring to make up for the fact that we'd be meeting up at the airport at 3 AM, C asked for lip balm. I'm embarrassed to admit I concluded C was a gay man. C is, in fact, a woman. My bad.
Anyhoo, we all stood together with my luggage cart piled high with my ginormous 69-pound suitcases (actually, one was 73 and the other 65; the second we were out of sight of the officious Indian woman and on our way to the x-ray machine, I re-packed the bags to their original state -- delicates don't get squished in with shoes, dammit), all K's stuff, and the two cats, and it was a really long snaking line to get to Customs, which wasn't getting any shorter due to everyone cutting in front of us. Since it was, as I mentioned, 3 AM, I didn't object at all when C grabbed a passing khaki-clad official and pulled the "I'm a diplomat, get me out of here" card, which I normally find rather tacky. Except it didn't work. The officer grunted, poked with a bamboo stick ("lathi") at one of the bags on top (ouch, Charlotte), and walked away without a word. C put her hand on my wrist and gently eased the cart out of the line.
"Just keep walking," she muttered in my ear.
Gliding slowly across the stone floor, not making eye contact with anyone, the three of us walking clustered together so as to obscure our two growling and shaking bags, we sailed serene and unchallenged from the Customs area and out to the waiting Consulate van.
Our first assay of the apartment was brief. Levels: three. Layout: weird. Kitchen: no bigger than London's, dammit. Closet space: hey, may be *ok*. We released the poor tortured felines, and the four of us flopped down on the upstairs bed, just as it started getting light outside.
Three hours later, we were woken up by the doorbell. K went to investigate. It was an Amazonian woman. She said her name was S, and she was our maid.
Landing in Bangkok involves a certain amount of violence. The cool, dry air of the plane is so different from the heavy, hot, wet air outside, that it rushes in the second the seal of the door is broken. You expect a chemical reaction. You really feel it when you're standing at the door's threshold, about to de-plane -- for a moment, you almost think the graciously smiling and wai-ing flight attendants are seeing you off by garlanding you with a dripping wet fur stole. As much as I love Thailand, it's a moment when I'm always seriously tempted to step back on the plane.
Mumbai wasn't like that at all. It was hot, but normal-hot, not hot-as-an-
introduction-to-a-whole-new-way-of-being-hot hot. Nor -- the subject-line joke I was unable to resist aside -- did it particularly smell of anything, even though I'd been warned to expect that to be my first impression. (To be fair, I've smelled the distinctive eau de Bombay upon every subsequent arrival, including when returning from other parts of India. Moreover, I remained blissfully unaware of the separate scents of Colaba and Kemp's Corner for about two weeks, until the veil was abruptly ripped from my nostrils one evening downtown, and I felt like I was drowning in a giant latrine. Since these odors are kinda hard to miss, all I can assume is that I had some kind of temporary excitement-induced anosmia. Anyone know how to re-induce it?)
Strangely enough, I do remember the smell of the airport, which was of the kind of disinfectant used in junior high school bathrooms or in campgrounds, and is always an artificially bright green. The airport itself was low-ceilinged and drab, with stern little notices in 1970's-type fonts, in Hindi and English, about just about everything. The whole set-up had the feel of being not quite permanent.
I was pleased to see there was a "diplomat" counter at Immigration. However, about three seconds later, I was overtaken by a crowd of Indians -- I figured they couldn't *all* be diplomats -- making a beeline for it. I grabbed K and we jumped in the fray.
We were met just outside Immigration by C. C has a somewhat unusual name that could be male or female. In our initial email correspondence, when I asked C what I could bring to make up for the fact that we'd be meeting up at the airport at 3 AM, C asked for lip balm. I'm embarrassed to admit I concluded C was a gay man. C is, in fact, a woman. My bad.
Anyhoo, we all stood together with my luggage cart piled high with my ginormous 69-pound suitcases (actually, one was 73 and the other 65; the second we were out of sight of the officious Indian woman and on our way to the x-ray machine, I re-packed the bags to their original state -- delicates don't get squished in with shoes, dammit), all K's stuff, and the two cats, and it was a really long snaking line to get to Customs, which wasn't getting any shorter due to everyone cutting in front of us. Since it was, as I mentioned, 3 AM, I didn't object at all when C grabbed a passing khaki-clad official and pulled the "I'm a diplomat, get me out of here" card, which I normally find rather tacky. Except it didn't work. The officer grunted, poked with a bamboo stick ("lathi") at one of the bags on top (ouch, Charlotte), and walked away without a word. C put her hand on my wrist and gently eased the cart out of the line.
"Just keep walking," she muttered in my ear.
Gliding slowly across the stone floor, not making eye contact with anyone, the three of us walking clustered together so as to obscure our two growling and shaking bags, we sailed serene and unchallenged from the Customs area and out to the waiting Consulate van.
Our first assay of the apartment was brief. Levels: three. Layout: weird. Kitchen: no bigger than London's, dammit. Closet space: hey, may be *ok*. We released the poor tortured felines, and the four of us flopped down on the upstairs bed, just as it started getting light outside.
Three hours later, we were woken up by the doorbell. K went to investigate. It was an Amazonian woman. She said her name was S, and she was our maid.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment<< Home