We Have Arrived

So there really isn't much positive to say about flying 15 hours across the globe. For those lucky enough to have business class seats, it's a bit like being forced to sit in your living room in a lazy boy watching movies. For the rest of us -- with tickets in steerage -- its an exercise in patience. How long can you hold it before you've got to clamber over the two half-asleep passengers between you and the isle? How long can you wait for the stewardess to come back with some water, the thirst building up thanks to the dry airplane air while you remain crammed in your seat covered in blankets, pillows, and leftover airplane food made from partially hydrogenated something-or-other and rubber? And, how long before what seems to be an entire preschool class of children on the plane decide that crying more loudly than the roar of the engines isn't helping anything and finally go to sleep?

Arriving in India is really an experience unto itself. When the jet lands, you get your first exposure to life in Delhi as the outside air starts to get piped into the plane. Air quality in Delhi is horrendous. Think LA at the height of the fires this year, and then assume along with all the smoke from thousands of acres of burning forests you add 1,000 lead smelting plants to the greater LA area, and that's much what you breathe while your in Delhi. It burns the throat. I'm pretty sure that going for a jog would actually take a day or two off your life.

Walking out of the airport, the air really hits you full blast. But when we headed toward a cab, I noticed another fragrance in the air as well. It seems the attitude towards public use of marijuana is a bit more lax in India than in the US, so it was fun trying to figure out which cabbie to avoid cause he was hitting the ganja. Not that I know what that smells like for any reason, mind you.

The cabs in Delhi are mostly modeled after an old British car design, the Ambassador. The general coolness factor can't be overstated on these cars. I felt like I was walking into some Benny Hill episode. They don't have any shocks, were probably constructed originally around 1960, and make sounds that don't exactly inspire confidence. But, boy howdy you do ride in style.

Raj and I arrived in Delhi together, a few days after Kevin. We are staying in Delhi for a couple of days before we actually head to Chennai to begin our work. Randomly, Kevin and I have a mutual friend, Adnan, who along with his fiancee Kristen is doing work with the street children in Delhi, having just finished B-school at Stanford. (I guess he wants to get in some humanitarian work before he sells his soul to corporate America.) So we headed to his apartment to enjoy his & Kristin's hospitality for a day or two in Delhi. We plan to hit the Taj Mahal together Monday before the three of us catch our flight to Chennai on Tuesday. Raj has seen it before, but I figured if I was going to be this close to one of the Wonders of the World, I had to check it off my list.

Of course, going across the globe does some strange things to your internal clock. I can only kind of half sleep on airplanes, so by the time we arrive at Adnan's in Delhi I've been awake since Saturday morning and its now the equivalent of Sunday afternoon. Delhi is 11 and a half hours ahead of Dallas time, so it is Sunday night here. (Honestly, what's the deal with the half hour? Does the Sun rise and set in such a way that India really needed that extra half hour, and everybody else in the world just has to deal with extra arithmetic?) When we get to Adnan's, his neighbor is throwing a party on their rooftop to celebrate their 12th year wedding anniversary, and invited us up. They had a tremendous spread for their party... We ate like kings. The food is nothing short of outstanding. And even this far across the globe, the Johnny Walker Black Label was in abundance. After a few scotches, the host and I began to solve all the world's problems. Its amazing how easy problems are to solve after a fair amount of alcohol mixes with the weariness of 30+ hours without sleep.

Finally, though, we bid our host adieu, get settled into our sleeping arrangements, and look forward to starting on the road to the Taj Mahal at 6am... A solid 4 hours of sleep to end a long, long day.

Mike Morath