Lucknow Note: The journey

We were at Chai Gali sipping Bangalore tea, when our friend asked “So what is your plan for the vacation?” He was talking about the December vacations, which was one weekend away.  “Oh! We have no plans” I responded. “Maybe we will come over to Lucknow” I kidded. Our friends latched on to the idea and started planning instantly. We humoured them for a few minutes before realizing that it was an idea worth implementing. That night, we frantically searched for tickets in the various airline websites. Finally, we found a not-so-obscene airfare with the only disadvantage of travelling on New Year’s Eve. But this was not an issue as most New Year’s Eves were like any other eve for us. So travelling on New Year’s Eve seemed a perfect situation.

Travelling to Lucknow from Chennai, involved multiple flights and many hours spent in one airport or the other. In our case, we had five hours to kill at Delhi airport – not T3 but the smaller T2. Airports and flights are wonderful places to observe people and listen to their conversations. Some would call this eavesdropping or overhearing but they don’t understand the artistic intent behind in this exercise. Many of the lyrics of the songs by the group Underworld are based conversations overheard by the group’s lead singer Karl Hyde. Though I am not sure, I believe the following lines from the song Dark and Long is example of overheard conversation.

Me I’m just a waitress she said

I went and bought a new head she said

I look at you and I believe in you she said

Screaming into the eye of the lens

On the morning of the flight, we were happy to find a not-so-crowded Chennai airport. Not many wanted to travel on a Christmas morning. The security clearance queue had around 40 people. But this seemed too many for a group of young girls from some place north of India. They jumped across the dividers and pushed away people in their attempt to get to the front. We were in no mood to give in to their brutish move and stood like a wall. They were forced to stand behind us but crowded and pushed us on. They seemed to be frantic and commented “Oh! How long it takes?” and “I have heard Chennai airport is crowded in the mornings.” I guess some day they should see the crowded airport. On such a day, people would not be as polite as the crowd on this Christmas morning.

The wait at the Delhi airport was relaxing. We proved ourselves to be staunch South Indians by having Idli-dosa for breakfast at Vango in the airport. The name of the restaurant is misleading. Its written Vango and we will be tempted to read it as such. But that is not how it is pronounced. It is pronounced Aiyo Vango. The Aiyo part in the name is invisible, similar to p being silent in the word psychology.  The person at the cash counter was a good sales man who entices people to buy combos. You ask for an idli and he will sell you a combo with vada and coffee. You ask for a vada and he will sell you a combo with coffee. You ask him a dosa and he will sell you a combo with idli and coffee. You ask him a coffee and he will sell you any of the above combos. He does all this selling with extreme subtlety; “Sir, make it a combo and you will only pay 100 rupees extra”. Being an experienced traveller, I am not gullible and only fell for his tactics once. One sip of the coffee and I realized I had not gained enough experience.

We also ran into a relative of ours at the airport. No, not really! I should have said “I ran behind a relative of ours at the airport calling out his name through good part of the waiting area.” Everyone at the waiting area watched at the scene with interest and soon a crowd converged on the poor fellow.  They were all calling out his name and informing him that I was running behind him.  The fellow turned around and gave me a cold look.  I was shocked by the cold reception. He gave me a frigid “Hello, how are you?” and before I could respond said “Sorry, I have a flight to catch. Talk to you later”, turned around and walked away. I don’t understand why people behave this way. I think I have done him a huge favour; many people across India know him by face and name. If he ever finds himself stuck in Jodhpur with nowhere to stay, I am sure there will at least be one or two people who will identify him and offer him food and shelter. But he did not understand this and left me embarrassed. Well, I am sure that I have to strike his name off the list of people who acknowledge my existence on this planet. Sad!

There was one other place where we will fell prey to a brilliant sales person. We saw a board declaring 50% off on a multinational clothing brand at a shop. We wanted to pick a sweater for the young one in the family. Prior to choosing the sweater, we verified the 50% discount claim on the poster with a sales person in the shop. She was very helpful and explained it. The discount process involved complex computational routine. Halfway through the explanation, I requested her to stop, fished out a book from my bag and started noting down the conditions and formulae involved. It occupied a full side of my long notebook and seemed fit to be sent to one of the esteemed international journals on mathematics. I ran my eyes through the page but could not decipher what the percentage of discount will be if I bought a sweater worth Rs.1000. I thought it will be better to ask the sales person this question. By then the boy in our group had tried 3 sweaters and chosen the one he liked. He handed it over to me and said vehemently “I like this green sweater.  I want it.” The situation had just turned convenient or so I thought. I pointed at the sweater and asked the sales person “how much discount for this sweater?” She answered “Oh this one! This belongs to new stock and has no discount.” If the no fly passenger list (or something like that) did not exist, I would have uttered words that should never be uttered in airports and aircrafts.

The story does not end here. The supervisor of the shop walks in and complements me on having picked the sweater of the century for the boy. I ahem-ed once or twice and handed over the sweater to him to requested him to bill the same. At that moment, someone reminded that I was planning to buy a denim pants (actually, we referred to it as jeans pant but I have been made to believe that that is too colloquial a usage and I will be proper and call it denim pants). The supervisor used these words as a lasso and soon I found myself walking towards the trial room with a number of denim pants swinging from my arms. To cut the long story short, we ended up picking up a pant and a t-shirt. We ended up spending a few thousand more than expected. But I walked out a happy man. I was overwhelmed by a smart sales person and though the t-shirt was unnecessary, I got a big bargain on the denim pants.

We reached the gate to board the Lucknow flight five minutes ahead of the required time. There was a long queue and we stuck to the end of it. The long queue got longer. A few minute later, almost every passenger of the flight was in the queue but still it did not move. Thirty minutes after the announced boarding time, a faint voice came over the public announcement system and requested the passengers of the flight at the boarding gate to form a line. The owner of the voice either had poor eyesight or a great sense of humour. Either way we were way past the point to care for her inability or ability. Just as the line moved, a well dressed lady who was not a part of the queue enquired if this was the queue for the Lucknow flight. When we answered in the affirmative, she said something about she not being sure as it was a Monday in the month December in the year 2017 and other such obviouses. In the process, she sneaked into the line right behind us. Another person, put his carry-on luggage, which included a laptop bag, right by the door and went back to stand in his place in the queue. He spent the next 5 minutes craning his over the heads in the queue to ensure his bags remained where he had left it.

Being vacation time, the flights were filled with children. We were too sleepy in the early morning flight to notice them but we observed and overheard the children around us in the flight from Delhi. A brother and sister behind our seats were fighting over the window seat. The sister had parked herself in the window seat and the brother was staking claim.

"I will sit by the window."

"No it's my turn. You sat last on our flight to Delhi. Now it’s my turn."

"What are you saying? You sat for one hour and gave it to me for 10 minutes only. So now I will sit"

The mother intervened and was able to remove the sister from the window seat and place younger son there. The girl had a sad face with a sad voice and she expressed everything with a sob. We were sitting at the end of the flight and only towards the end of the flight the food trolley with the “delicious food and beverages available at attractive prices” reached us. The girl with sad voice wanted chicken sandwich and her mother did not share her enthusiasm.

"Khane ke liye tho kuch bhi nahin mila." (“We got nothing at all for eating”)

"Uske liye order karna padega." (“For that we need to order”)

"Tho order kharlo na." (“You better order then”)

"Kya order karna hain?" (“What should we order?”)

"Chicken sandwich." (“Chicken sandwich”)

"Nahin nahin veg sandwich." (“No, no! Veg sandwich”)

"Jab veg khana hain tab kayenge, ab veg sandwich nahin. Mujhe chicken khana hain."  (“I will eat veg when I have to eat it. Now I am not in vegetable sandwich mood. I want chicken” – For those who understand Hindi – Yes, this is a poor translation.)

After arguing for some time they settled on paneer sandwich, which she did not get either as the flight had started its descent. The girl said with a sob "I am hungry; you did not get me anything to eat." The mother said in a voice laced with hurt "but you had a pizza in the airport." The girl persisted "but you did not get me anything on the plane."

It was now the turn of a twelve year old in the seat ahead to capture my attention. He decided to dress himself up for arrival. He used the camera of his mother’s iPhone as his mirror. He started with a cap. After donning it, he checked his “mirror” and adjusted his hair jutting out of the cap for a good three to four minutes. He then took out his pair of goggles, which were the twenty first century model of the Gandhi specs. The goggles covered nearly 50% of his face. He checked his “mirror”; first the left profile and then the right. He gave a smile of satisfaction and captured the same using the iPhone camera.

On landing, we waited for the bus to transport us to the terminal. We had to show a lot of patience at this point. We knew how touchy the ground staffs get when people try to force their way into one of their buses. But our patience was tested by a few gentlemen, who refused to move away from the foot board of the bus. They were busy looking at the other bus picking up passengers from the front of the plane. They were trying to estimate which of the buses will leave earlier. So we had to shoulder our way into the bus through them. They were disappointed to find that the other bus reached the arrival gate ten seconds earlier than ours.

At the baggage carousel, we found a child sitting by the conveyor belt touching every bag with the toy car he held in his right hand. His father warned him and entreated him to keep away from the luggage moving around the carousal but of no avail. He said with exasperation “Jab chot lage tho batha dena” (“When you get hurt, let us know”). The sarcasm was lost on the boy. Fortunately, their baggage arrived a little later and boy left unhurt.

We picked up our baggage and stepped into Lucknow. We let the cold winter chill to travel through our flesh to the bones.