Fly like a Maharani.

This was the first time in a while I flew so much domestically in India. Back when I lived there we had Indian Airlines and that was about it. The average age of an air hostess was 45 and she was 'aunty'. The new Indian air space is now occupied with an impressive new fleet of new generation air companies. Kingfisher, Jet, Spice and some not so impressive Air Deccan and a few others whose names I don't remember but they were clearly not that memorable.

Kingfisher and Jet were so impressive though. These airlines define Indian hospitality and make me truly proud. I flew Jet all the way to the Andamans, Mumbai to Chennai, Chennai to Port Blair and I really enjoyed the ride. I mean when was the last time you enjoyed economy class on an airplane? OK so I was upgraded on one of the sectors which was lovely (especially because the reason I was upgraded was that I was really late and almost missed my flight so basically they had no choice other than to give me a business class seat-ha!)but even in economy, tucking into my deliciously aromatic hot Indian meal, smiling staff all around, comfy cushy seats and personalized in-flight entertainment, good-looking and attentive attendants, what more does a girl need?

It's really impressive given the crowd in the air these days. The air has become accessible to anyone in today's India and that presents an interesting new challenge in the world of airline passenger etiquette. Well basically it doesn't exist. The patience and love required on the part of the airline becomes all the more critical to ensuring a smooth flying experience for all and I have to say *some* airlines are doing an outstanding job. On the other hand certain airlines, like Air Deccan, which I had the misfortune of flying back from Port Blair to Chennai and then Chennai to Pune, are just struggling to play nice. They fuss over each gram of luggage, offer you over-priced, awful pre-packaged food and there aren't too many smiles to be seen in general.

In an environment of cheap tickets and last-minute deals and bargains, a lot is being sacrificed. Like the time when I was being crammed and jammed onto a bus (in India you take a bus to get to your plane on the tarmac) with about 700 hundred people and I couldn't understand why the airline staff couldn't crowd control. I mean was the plane going to take off without us? Did the entire planeful of people really need to be shoved into a single non-airconditioned bus?
Anyway moral of the story is that there is a lot of inconsistency out there so what you pay is what you get. The good is really great stuff and the rest is pretty 'eh'. It's good to have choices though. Lots of choices in my new India.

India Calling.

It’s really tragic because I thought I would do all this blogging in India and I wrote just the one blog entry there (which was gorgeous by the way) and thanks to the perils of blackberry I lost the entire thing! I want to scream in anguish for each letter that I painstakingly pecked out on my blackberry and just the thought that I was praising that little evil device in my mind and saying how it was so much better than lugging a laptop all over India....aargh!
I do have some stupidity role to play in all of this but we won’t go there. Listen it’s my blog and I can do what I want to.

SO.
India. 6 weeks huh? Yep. Lovely. Aaaasum. Yip. Totally.

So much to say that I'm reduced to valley-inspired monosyllables. Sigh.
Let me try to vaguely recall the blog entry I wrote.
Well it was something about how lush and green India is and as my plane was landing in Chennai I was really shocked at how green it was. I was on my way to the lovely islands of the Andamans, specifically Havelock island, flying from Bombay (Mumbai, Bombay, Chennai, Madras, potato, potaaaato...I really can’t keep up anymore) Anyway I was gushing. I clearly remember a lot of gushing and a lot of thinking that I was such an idiot to just keep coming to India once a year, going straight to Pune where my family lives and then a courtesy trip to Bombay (that too mainly because its my port of embarkation and disembarkation) and basically never traveling anywhere else in India. They key in India, I've realized so late in life, is to get the hell out of the cities. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love each bustling, choked to the brim, wildly traffic jammed and polluted city with my dear life but oh life outside the cities is what India is really all about. Not the malls. Oh those damn malls. Don’t get me started on the malls.

Its the children playing, the little water buffalos, the rolling plains, the endless fields of sugarcane and wheat, the cute little chai stalls, the deep green rivers, the mango trees, the palm trees, the loud chirpy birds...oh I could go and on. Its all just so lovely. Yes I've lost my mind but I don’t want to go to India only to have my relatives take me to a mall. I mean I'm the biggest shopaholic I know (after Radhika) but I could go to Jersey Gardens just around the highway and get a pair of Guess jeans for just about one-tenth of the price you get them in India! Those fancy Indian malls are such a rip-off! Body Shop is twice as expensive in India! So there you have me shopping at Khadi Gram Udyog and everyone thinks I'm so not cool.
Anyway I traveled a lot this time around and I have made a vow to travel a whole lot more. I feel awful when I meet people around the world who are not Indian and have seen way more India than I have. There is so much to see and so little time. This time around I went to the Andaman Islands, Goa (ok I've been there before but it still counts as traveling) and from my post in Delhi, I went to Haridwar and Rishikesh. Ok its not an awful lot of traveling but not bad when you're spending a lot of time with family. Next time I am doing Rajasthan and Kerala. I'm dying to go to Kashmir as well. Leh and Ladakh is where it’s at.

India just shocks me each time. The malls are snazzier, the richer get richer and sadly the poorer get poorer. Or at least they seem poorer in the face of everything else thats going on around them. The restaurants are so fancy and absolutely packed to the brim any night of the week. Packed with all kinds of folks too. This isn’t the India I grew up in, the one where only the upper-middle and upper went to the few restaurants in town over the weekends, the one where clubs were only packed with the rich cool kids and their rich cool friends, the one where only a select few had cell phones and laptops, the one where traveling abroad was considered truly wow and exceptional. This new India is like another country. Everyone is the boss here and everyone has a cell phone at their disposal, everyone is connected and everyone is cool. Everyone who is anyone has lots of cash and is going to spend every last dime of it showing you how much cash they have. It’s an India that screams 'Let me show you what I've got. Can you handle this?'