Travel is not for the faint hearted (or weak muscled)

In my opinion this is just too long a post. But my friend in India who had been tracking my whereabouts says that she wanted to read it all and that I should share it…. So here it is. 

I run across Munich airport like my life depends on it. Fed on a staple of Hollywood blockbusters, you know what that run looks like. Move over Jason Bourne, this middle-aged superstar is here to upstage you. Not only because of her speed or alacrity, but because she’s doing so with a carry-on wheelie whirling noisily (and sometimes non-cooperatively) alongside, a pink unwieldy bag on the shoulder, a bottle (that rolled out during security) under the armpit, whilst making sure she doesn’t  drop her phone or any travel documents. Yes, take that Jason Bourne - go ahead and look like you do accessorized like she is. 

No - I’m Not trying to catch any bad guys, or running away from any either, all my papers are legit and in order, (I’m boring like that) - I run only to catch my flight. 

And as in any aforementioned action movie, we must move to a day earlier. 

17 hours ago. Mumbai airport. I arrive to be told my flight is cancelled. I can wait a day in Mumbai and take the same flight in exactly 24 hours. But wait, this flight that I paid extra extra for so I would have only one connection and complete immigration etc. in my final destination operates only three days a week. Tomorrow is not one of those days. Aah… says the agent, “You’ll go via Salt Lake City” With a very tight layover, I notice as I squint at the itinerary. 

“The cockpit crew is sick, and they have no other crew here in Mumbai,” he tells me in confidence. 

“And they will all be better by tomorrow?” I ask cynically. 

“Most certainly” he assures me with his bright smile and 20-something optimism. 

Hmm… also a certified physician, I note sardonically. Did I mention cancelled flights, bring out the best, (and clearly the kindest) in me? Sigh… I decide not to grill the poor fellow about the nature of the cockpit crew’s ailment. I need to make a decision. Quick. 

He looks again at his screen. His face lights up. He has a solution. Mine does too - till I hear his plan. A domestic transfer to Bangalore or Delhi, a flight to Singapore, an 18-hour layover, then a flight to SFO and then my final destination. “How long will I be traveling?” My ears stop listening when his math crosses 45 hours. 

The key he says, taking me into confidence, is to get out of Mumbai. For all flights leaving Mumbai are heavily booked (and also overbooked, he hesitantly whispers). Move over again, Jason Bourne, my intelligence gathering skills are at an all-time high - my sources really seem to be spilling it all. 

Flights from Europe or other Asian hubs to the US are not very full. It’s the Mumbai segment that’s the problem, he shares. His face lights up again. 

“I can put you on your scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Portland.” He announces triumphantly. 

“How?” I ask incredulously. “You’ll have to hurry,” he tells me, “get on a flight to Munich and another from Munich to Amsterdam. And then catch the original second (now third) flight”. 

My brain tries to do the math. Will there be enough time to do flight transfers? “Oh yes,” assures my ever-optimistic friend. You won’t have to change terminals in Amsterdam or Munich. It’s all going to be close by. 

He sends me to a Lufthansa agent who gives me a boarding pass - but only till Munich. “Wait, what about the other boarding passes? There won’t be time…” 

“Sorry I can’t issue those here - those are KLM flights - you’ll get them at the gate” I hesitate, trying to weigh in this situation, when he hurries me, saying the flight will leave soon and that I should rush. You’re sure I’ll get them at the gate and that it will be quick? “Definitely” another smile and more optimism.

Hmmm… All those smiles and assurances from the 20-something Mumbai airline agents is probably how and why I am now running like a frenzied woman ah no, superstar, at the Munich airport. 

Munich 

The flight is late by a few minutes and I ask the flight attendants if they have information for connecting flights and gates. I am also eager to get out of my seat, as I sit smooshed between two heavy guys (thinking wistfully of my chosen perfect seats on the flight that never took off). Of course, one is coughing. As I put on my mask he tells me his father in law’s cat gave him allergies. Sigh... scratch everything they say about the journey being more important than the destination! 

The flight attendant looks at my printed itinerary “Aah you will have to change terminals; KLM flights are on terminal 1.”  Argh… never again trust a smiling flight agent. 

Not only is the next flight not easy to get to, but getting to the other terminal and my gate involves a security check, a train ride, a bus ride (which of course operates only every 20 minutes since it is too early in the am.) and running, lots of running. The bus arrives, I get on, I ask the driver if we can leave - there isn’t a soul around. He gives me a disapproving and firm, “no”. So much for trying to break the German discipline. Jason Bourne would have driven it himself. I try no such stunt. Getting imprisoned in Munich would require me to write a book, not a blogpost. 

He tells me where to go - I run like crazy trying to reach the gate  - only to arrive at a passport control. Nooooo. I wonder if I should take the flight back to Mumbai to have a chat with the agents who put me on this flight. No boarding pass, no proceeding to gate. I’m told to go downstairs - more running. 

And then finally I stop running, it’s too late. I wonder why I kept running, why I didn’t give up earlier, this tenacity is exhausting. But again, back to matters on hand and the counter in question. 

“You missed the flight” he informs me. I brace myself to not react, or weep, or call him Sherlock; instead I ask, “Is there another flight you can out me on?” 

“Oh no, I don’t do that. Call this number. After 8 am.” It is 7 am. I look at him in disbelief. He is right there. He had a computer in front of him. I ask if there is anyone else who can help me. He tells me it’s just him here and that this is a small airport. I want to scream. I don’t. 

I can’t believe it. There’s got to be another agent who can help put me on a flight. I search for information and talk to a few other people who direct me to another place that may have KLM agents even if it is only for baggage. I go to the deserted area and call out. An unhappy looking agent emerges and shoos me away from there saying that Lufthansa will be responsible for booking my next flight since their flight got delayed. “So should I call this KLM number?” I ask waving the piece of paper.

“Call if you want to,” I stare at him open-jawed, as he walks away.

Just great, I am at an airport on a continent midway from my travel origin and destination, without a boarding pass, or a plan, unsure of which airline is supposed to assist me and who and where to find any assistance. 

I look for some place to charge my dying phone and place a phone call that will probably cost me a fortune. Of course, I’m on hold. 

And did I mention, as I navigate the different counters, I hear an airport strike is going to begin in Munich the next day!! Which means all flights will be cancelled. Which means I need to get out of there pronto!!!

While still on hold, I decide to find the Lufthansa agents (back on the other terminal, of course). I need to leave that airport before the strike begins, even if it means I just buy a new ticket, I decide.

Wow. This saga is getting longer than I imagined. But I’m jetlagged and have nothing better to do at 4 am and how can I leave you hanging in suspense, right? So, continuing on…

Miraculously as my number for the Lufthansa agent is called, I reach the KLM agent as well. The Lufthansa agent chides me for contacting two airlines. But...but… I start… no one told me who would help. Reluctantly, I hang up on the KLM agent (that expensive phone call, remember?) when he mentions Tampa, Florida.

The Lufthansa agent scolds me some more and tells me she should be able to help me. Then her more matronly self emerges as she hears my saga. She scowls at the screen - they’ve booked you on a flight -  Munich to Newark then Tampa Florida and then Portland (two days later!). 

“Why do you want this flight”? She asks. 

“I most certainly don’t”, I reply. KLM has somehow auto booked me. Clearly their AI minions aren’t thinking clearly. 

She finds me another flight and sends me off to the United airlines counters and asks me to say hello to her cousin in Portland! “Come visit,” I tell her “I’ll show you around. I’ll give you my number”. Clearly she is my most favorite person in that moment. She tells me she hates to travel. I burst out laughing and say, “for sure, you see everything that goes wrong!”

And then of course, there is the matter with luggage. She tells me they do not load luggage till the passenger is on the flight. I have only one checked bag and brilliantly enough, it has an airtag in it. I can see it is still in Munich. Now whether it will get handed to the new airline in time for the flight is a matter for some suspense, but I have no bandwidth to worry about that.  

As I chat with the United airlines agent who prepares my tickets, I tell her this is my second unscheduled flight to Munich. The first was when our flight from London to Berlin got cancelled and flew via Munich and spent hours at this airport. She asked if I have ever been to Munich. I tell her I haven’t, and she laughs and says that’s why this was all happening. Sigh… now I know what I need to do to break that jinx!

And while my legs and shoulders are sore from the strange running with luggage, I’m glad to have found a flight out of there. For in the hours spent at many counters, I learn of a two-day airport strike in Munich that is to start the next day.  The odd thing is I laugh. A laugh that was accepting of the craziness and of everything that could go wrong and the realization that even when things were out of my control, that I would eventually get home. 

And just when I let go of all the trying, that’s when things start to work for me. 

Jet lag and the batata chivda

They say you regress into your young self when you go back to your place of origin. 

Okay fine, but seriously, do I really want to regress that far? I ask myself, at 3 am as I think of stealthily sneaking into my mom’s kitchen to get some batata chivda (a savory and sweet potato fritter snack filled with raisins and nuts). 

Jet lag makes you hungry - at odd times. And while grabbing a banana may be a more sensible (and easier, not to mention healthier) alternative, I carefully evaluate my kitchen raid. 

I text my kid on a different continent and time zone. 

Her response makes me laugh. Game on, I decide. 

All the stealth and sneaking is so I don’t wake up my parents. But the process goes way way back into my childhood as I try to sneak a besan ladoo from my grandmom’s kitchen when she goes down for her afternoon siesta.

As your childhood miscreant days will remind you, it’s mostly about noise and timing so you don’t get caught with your hand in the proverbial cookie jar. 

Hmmm… how much noise will I make?

My walk is soft and sneaky. No noise there. Check. 

Opening the jar could involve some loud displaced sounds in the dark. Hmm…

My mind wanders again to my grandmother’s steel dabba ( container) - now that was trickier and far noisier. Opening it involved some force for my tiny fingers and God forbid, if the lid fell and clanged away on the tile floor, it meant certain doom. Not only did I have to contain the lid from falling, but my tiny palms had to quickly muffle the resonance and echo of the metal sound as it opened. Yes, this is how a tiny restless kid sometimes found ways to entertain herself as the house fell quiet in the afternoon. 

 I think of my grandmother’s stainless steel dabba (container) of ladoo (sweet sticky balls of ghee, sugar and roasted-to-perfection chickpea flour, seasoned with cardamom, and masterfully coaxed into the softest, most delicious creations. Lined symmetrically in perfect concentric circles, my grandfather ate one at around 4 pm each afternoon. 

Now that makes me almost certain that my grandmother knew exactly when one went missing and who was responsible for it. But she never once breathed a word to me. Sheer love. I notice it now, even if I didn’t notice it then. 

I suppose, a part of our childhood is spent imagining ways in which we dupe adults. Only to understand later that they always saw right through us and all our silliness. 

As I regress into the scrawny barefooted kid quietly opening my grandmother’s glass cabinet to get the heavy (for me then) dabba, I remember all the excitement this activity entailed. 

True. All evidence of a childhood filled with antics - mostly unnecessary. Mostly creating a LOT of excitement over teeny tiny insignificant things. 

Is that really why I want to break into my mom’s kitchen? Is it really for the batata chivda? Or for an attempt to create the laughter and excitement from the silliest insignificant things from childhood. 

Even if I may never feel that level of excitement over small things anymore,  maybe just maybe,  a part of me feels that I may detect the slightest trace. 

When all fails… sing!

It’s January. A time of renewed hope - for ourselves, our intentions, our lives. A time to take stock, a time to chart directions, an imaginary map of our life, steered by the best-serving intentions.

Do you sense mockery in my tone? Maybe. For this year, I draw a blank. Boredom? Inertia? A sense of futility? Been there done that? Been there, failed at that?  

Perhaps it is time to try something new. How about looking at something we already do – something that saves us? I close my eyes and search for the first thing to pop into my head.

When things get rough, sometimes, I simply sing.

Really? Is that all you got? I ask myself. Just great. So here, let me continue on my series of unsound advice.

But first let me tell you how I think it all began. I may have my sister to thank. I was probably nine years old and she was nineteen. We went to a very crowded temple fair and the two of us got on the Ferris wheel. It was great, you could see the lights and the city below. Till suddenly, it wasn’t so great. Something was wrong with the Ferris wheel. It was rickety and shaky. Maybe it was just our pod that was shaking like crazy, or maybe it was all of them.  Our fingers clenched the rail. I held my breath. Clearly, we were doomed.

And just when things couldn’t get worse, they did. The Ferris wheel stopped moving. And yes, we were on the top. Because it would all be too easy and simple if we were in the gondola right at the bottom, where escape would seem easy or possible, right?

Right. At that point in my life, I turned to my sister, who was ten years older than me, and had all the answers. Always. And to everything. 

“Let’s sing!” she said. That was her solution. And since she had all the answers. Always. And to everything, I figured that was our only choice. “Sing what?” I probably asked terrified. As if our song choice were the most important thing in that moment. Well, I’m almost certain I asked that.

I am certain we sang “Top of the world”. Not sure if that was her choice or mine, in any case, at least today, it seems like a terrible one. While our exact playlist may be a fuzzy memory, I am certain of the panic-stricken volume in which we sang or screeched in.  

Convinced that the sheer volume of our voices could drown out all our fears, we sang like our lives depended on it. In that moment we probably believed it. It was our only solution.

And maybe it was. And maybe it continues to be. For sometimes, when nothing makes sense, I sing.

There have been many times I have done so. In the car, returning from a doctor’s appointment, feeling helpless, or frustrated. And volume be damned - I sing so loudly, that passing cars with their windows rolled up can hear me. At times, in writhing pain, or unable to make sense of new diagnoses, or simply overwhelm, when nothing makes sense, I sing.

And sometimes I sing in my head – in the middle of strange, unnerving, or unpleasant situations. In a crowd, or in public, when I can't sing aloud, I sing in my head. Yeah yeah, I know how crazy all this sounds. To add to this, I often sing to incorrect lyrics. Yes, I often make up lyrics as I go, at times even convinced mine are better than the original.

Not sure if all this will make you want to attempt this, but try it. It works. And it is time tested. For my sister has all the answers. Always. And to everything. 

Happy New Year!

Love,

Ruta

More Crowing

I am not sure if I write this to validate my crow story in all self-righteousness. Or further prove my weirdness, by simply failing to drop the topic. But here goes.

My sisters remind me of the crow story on my last trip to India. (This one: https://clustersofmoments.blogspot.com/2024/11/conversations-with-crows.html ) The reason it stays with me is partly because on the same trip, my friend tells me her family’s crow story. Yeah yeah, that’s right… whatever it is that they say about ‘birds of a feather…’

She tells me how their crow would visit their balcony every day. They start feeding the crow, but the crow clearly has a favorite. Her husband. He takes the cracker only when her husband hands it to him. No one else. Sorry folks.

“See…” I tell her all indignation, “They do recognize people”. Case in point. I need no more validation. I do a mental jig in my head. I make a mental note to tell my sisters. I soon forget all about it.  

The nerd in me wants to research this further and perhaps write about it too. “The secret habits of crows” will make fine reading. As will “Your neighborly crow knows you better than you imagine”. Coming “this summer” to a bookstore near you.

And while it would be far more educational and informative if I did some scientific research on crows and their human recognition patterns, that is simply not the point of this blog. Wait, is there a point to this blog? All metaphysical questions I suppose.

Metaphysics or not, this blog is about simplicity. It’s an attempt to make sense of ourselves in relation to our world, to distill life into an easier understanding of its experience.

All that we deem strange and weird (even if much later), is really not strange or weird at all. And if you need external validation, you will find there are others doing the same thing. If I dig further, I will find that many people have their own crow stories. 

And while some see the wonder in it, some see the weirdness in it, some see the complete normal in it. And the wonderful thing is that we get to choose. 

Conversations with crows

Of all the friends I had as a child, one was a crow. Yes, a big black, cawing crow.

I had forgotten about my feathered friend, till on my last trip to India, my sisters recounted my daily “conversations” from our balcony, with this particular crow. It all came back quickly. I insisted it was the same crow returning daily. It was. Of that, I am sure. They also recounted that I insisted we (the crow and I) communicated with one another. Of that, I am not so sure. Or at least, some decades later, no longer so sure.

I was probably eight or nine years old and determined to master animal and bird sounds around me. I spent hours perched on the apartment complex wall, perfecting my goat bleat. A herd visited a well at the back of the wall, every day. And while my bleat is quite perfect (ahem… even today), the goats simply looked around nervously and scampered away.

The crow, on the other hand, stayed. And came back. Every. Single. Day. Just to caw with me. He was a friend, my friend. I remember the exact spot on the balcony from where I communicated with him. Of where he perched himself. And even if my caw was not quite as perfected as my bleat, he still came back daily.  

There are times when we are grateful for the families we are born into. Oddly enough, this makes me grateful for mine, despite all dysfunction. For I realize only now (and with much gratitude), no one ever thought to discourage me from talking to crows or from the many other strange things I did. They sometimes discussed it, laughed it off, and accepted it all as part of who I was.

I also remember writing an essay in school, about the crow – not sure if I wrote about “my” crow, or crows in general. But I know my words came strong in defense of all crows and why we need to look at them with wonder rather than as nuisance – given their beautiful black sheen, their friendly demeanor and even their cawing that was crisper than a peacock’s ugly meowing.  

And while I was simply stating what was true to me, I do remember my teacher calling me aside to chat with me about my essay – whether she was amused, captivated, or simply worried, I will never know.

As for my crow friend, was he just flying in to check in with me, have a little conversation, or did he consider me as part of his flock? I will never know. And while that may have been the beginning of my love of foreign languages (crow, not included), I wonder if I even felt the need to know what he was saying.

He looked at me and cawed. I cawed right back at him. And then he repeated, And then, I repeated. What he said, I may have never known (or maybe I did, as I claimed), but the delight I got from this whole business was one hundred percent real.

He was simply my friend and we cawed along, just fine.

Clarity is a murky thing

Serendipity is a funny thing. In that, it happens. Over and over. Just when you need it. Just when you’re looking for it, in the least.

I am in the middle of a book, “The Sense of an Ending”, by Julian Barnes. Too distracted and saddened by the events of the past week, I do not wish to immerse myself in the happenings of fictionalized worlds of books. My head swims in the many questions related to events around me, to pay head to those Barnes raises, even if most eloquently.

I pick up the book again, and what I read stops me in my tracks. The protagonist talks about history. And although his context is a little different, I apply it to mine.

“The history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest and yet it is the most deliquescent.”

It truly is, isn’t it? It flows away from us before we can make sense of it, and yet it is our history, in our time. It belongs to us, and as Barnes points out, it ought to be the clearest.  

But it isn’t. Maybe it will be to those who look at it in the future. Which is probably why Barnes talks about past history, “Perhaps I just feel safer with the history that has more or less been agreed upon”

And while our history in our present may not be the clearest, it is ours and we will have to own it. And it is ours, to help remind us that only we can shape it.

Thank you, Julian Barnes.

Grief and love

To lose a loved one… to have a human being removed from our lives… forever. Even when it is the truth, the truth seems elusive. Even when there is no denying the reality, the reality seems slippery.

For how can a person be gone? Their smile is still with us, their grace, their kindness, their humanity still lives. How then can the person be gone forever?

Certain places and situations will never feel complete without them. Unconsciously, we expect them to join us, but they never will. Even when homes and walls that have been filled with their life and presence, can never be without.

We talk in the present tense about them, only to be reminded of the permanence of death. Our mind wants to trick us into believing that they are still here.  Perhaps it is a way to protect the heart. For it may be harder for the heart than for the head. Allowing small escapes from reality, even when the stark, steely, certainty stares at us.

Slowly we train ourselves to accept it. Coax our hearts into believing that they are in a place beyond suffering. Reminding ourselves of the full lives they led with meaning and purpose. Of the good they did and the world they changed for the better in their small and generous ways.

Grief fills us, and so does love. And you wonder how you can be so filled with grief and love all at once. The loss of a loved one will do that. Slowly you notice gratitude seeping in. For what they added to your life, and you can only hope that you added something to theirs.