I am no expert in Arabic, but I am pretty sure that is not salt 🙂

Eating out or ordering food is always a nightmare for me. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Do you want Caesar dressing or balsamic vinaigrette? Do you want it well done or medium rare? Do you want skimmed milk or fat free? Do you want sugar or Equal? Do you want eggs or white eggs? Even for something as innocuous as simple as fries, now it is Do you want regular fries or sweet potato fries?
Do you want wheat bread, white bread, or sourdough bread?

Well, thanks to Emirates, I do not have to deal with the last question any more. Look at the bread they gave me with my meal. It is three different kinds of bread fused into one!!! 🙂

I know people always accuse me of being over-friendly and talking to everybody. By “people”, I, of course, mean my wife and two daughters. But they cannot blame me for what happened today.

I arrived at Kolkata airport early morning to start my long 30 hour haul back to Atlanta thru Dubai. Today being Id (Bakhrid, I think), it is a holiday here and both the roads and the airport were pretty empty. I breezed thru checkin, immigration and then had to go through security. I had put my stuff on the conveyor belt and then was getting frisked by this young CISF guy. Just before he stamped my boarding pass (the process in India is different from US), he suddenly looked at me and asked softly “Aap Hindustani hai?” (Are you from India?).

I affirmed that and his next question was “Aap ka wahan pe security kaise hota hai?” (How is airport security done where you live?).

I started explaining to him the process in US and then noticed that there was a queue behind me. He also nodded me away realizing that I might be in a hurry. I picked up my stuff and instead of going to me gate, sat in a chair nearby.

After the queue had died down in about ten minutes, I walked up to him and asked him if he wanted to hear the rest of it. He was very eager. So, I explained how we take off our shoes and belts and watches etc unlike in India. I also explained how we have to take out the liquids and gels in a ziploc bag. (I did not have to do any of those things at Kolkata). He was very interested and intrigued by how the scatter-ray machines work at US airport. His conclusion was “Aap log bohut advanced hai”. (You guys are very advanced).

I then explained also how TSA Pre works. He agreed with the concept. “Do char logon ki liye baaki logon ko bohut taklif hoti hai” (Everybody suffers because of a couple of bad guys).

I found out that Rakesh Singh is from Mughalsarai area in Bihar and he joined the CISF at a very early age to be able to support his family back in Bihar. He was excited that he will be meeting them during Diwali in a few weeks. Before I left, I asked him why did he pick on me to ask his questions. He said that before frisking me, he noticed my name on the boarding card and that the passport was from US. He guessed rightly that I am from India now settled in US!!

I wished him the best on his road ahead and told him that with the level of intellectual curiosity he has and his ability to observe and judge, he is going to have a great career in front of him.

I walked away thinking how I always avoided those stern looking machine-gun toting CISF guys at Indian airports – and yet, at the end of the day, every one of them is a human being. And like all human beings, each one of them has a story….

It was 4:15 in the morning. Got up early and came out to sit on the balcony of dad’s place. It was dark but nice and cool. In the thick fog, the street lamps looked dim and sleepy. The first round of birds were trying to clear their throats already.

Fifteen minutes later, my dad woke up and hobbled himself to another chair in the balcony. And eventually mom woke up and gave us some tea.

For the next half an hour or so both of us just sat there quietly doing nothing other than sipping tea and watching the night fade out as day light strove to melt away the fog. The birds kept getting increasingly active and louder as the east kept taking brighter hues of red. We sat there, wordless. It was like time had stopped for both of us – yet it was visually progressing in front of us…

Eventually, I broke the silence and said that I should ready and that I had to leave by 6 AM.

He broke his silence next asking when I will come back again.
I promised to make it in 3 months again.

That was a typical Kalyani evening for me. It started with the usual stress test of my digestive and immunity systems. We went to our usual street-side “foochka-wala” and devoured some of those savories. Then to push our stomachs to the limit we went to another street-side guy and had some “aloor chop” and “shingara”.

That followed a trip back and opening up a red wine bottle. My sister still does not have a wine opener – luckily this was a screwtop one. My brother in law still thinks wine is the same as scotch and added half a glass of water to his three teaspoonfuls of wine. And my brother still thinks wine is the same as beer and finished his wine glass before I could barely say “Cheers”.

But the fun was really sitting in the dark balcony at my sister’s place, sipping whatever it was that we were sipping and catching up on each other’s lives. Especially about our kids…

A couple of days back, I landed at Mumbai airport and got into the waiting car from JW Marriott. The driver was very helpful, as always. Once inside the car, he offered me a bottle of water. And then he handed me a card. I asked in Hindi what that card was all about. He informed me that it had the password for the Wifi in the car. For a second, I could not believe it. I have never yet gotten into a pick up car that offered free wifi in the car. Trains, yes. Planes, yes. But never a car. I asked him if the wifi is something from the city or in the car. He said it is with the car. (I assume they have one of those wifi routers that go over the cellular network).

I was very impressed. But I said No Thank You. I told him that Mumbai was my city more than 20 years back and I just wanted to enjoy the city sights outside as we drove to the hotel.

He was not ready to give up yet. He suggested a website from which I could download a lot of Mumbai pictures. (I assume he was suggesting I can use the car wi-fi for that!!) 🙂

Anyways, ten minutes later, I fished out my phone to check on Google maps how much time it would take us to reach the hotel. The first thing Google maps told me was to switch my Wifi on so it will know my current location with greater accuracy. I guess Google Maps knows the SSID and the router locations. I was really tempted to take my driver up on his offer and see if I could confuse Google Maps since the nearest SSID would be traveling along with me 🙂

Instead, I just simply asked the driver for the answer 🙂