
The Jai (\ˈjā \) Team Chase the Summer Solstice Sun
June 21st, 2018
It felt like jumping into the dark, so it was fitting that we left at 4am for the airport. It was really happening. While walking the switchbacks of security the only thing that stood between us and getting on the plane was a gentle K9 Labrador mix smelling everyone’s feet, lingering before passing to the next person. After being dismissed the line shot toward the screening machines like a row of pin balls. On the other side of security we bought coffee and sat leisurely chatting before getting on the plane.
When we landed in San Francisco we had three whole hours to navigate SFO, and we presumed it would be ample time to make it to our connection and sit to do last-minute leaving-the-country business. First we found and rode the air train, then took half a dozen or so escalators. By a stroke of luck and some intuitive decisions we managed to find the international ticket counter — where we discovered by chance that our luggage was not booked through our flights. It had to be tracked down and re-entered into the checked luggage system. We bottle necked the counter while half our fellow passengers waited behind us in line, and we all still had to go through security, (which is a bit more complicated when leaving the country.) We had to almost completely unpack to get through (this was the second time my backpack was searched.) When we made it to the gate the plane was boarding and we dropped everything on the floor, and quickly re-packed before rushing toward the jetway. There were still people coming through security and boarding behind us as we settled in our seats and the pilot made an announcement that we were waiting for luggage to be be put on the plane. I felt guilt rise up at the suspicion it might have been ours, but when we could hear the bags being loaded there were dozens more than our three, so it wasn’t just ours. We missed our take-off schedule. We had to be squeezed in to a miniature departure window. Our airplane took us to the very edge of the airport where our inbound had flight landed, we turned facing the runway and waited.
When all you see is an airplane getting larger and larger and larger, that means that it is headed straight for you. We watched a string of planes come in for landing, sometimes two at a time on parallel runways right in front of us. Eventually there was a break in the flow of traffic and I could see two pearls of light lining up. By the time our engines started, our plane moved forward and began to turn toward the runway they were growing — slated to land directly behind us just as we were taking off. Our pilot managed to take off in that slot. I wonder how many passengers knew that there was a plane coming in immediately after us at several hundred miles an hour while we were gathering enough speed to gain air. It was an incredible management of immense information and a feat of impeccable timing. If you know someone working for the SFO air traffic control, please do us all whose lives were in their capable hands a favor and buy them a round of drinks, or actually~ not that, something like a vacation somewhere warm and sunny. They deserve it!
The flight to Delhi was really quite charming. Getting on the plane was stepping through a portal back in time, the decor was frozen in the 70’s. The stewardesses wore Sari uniforms and everything was orange with a starburst design reminiscent of vinyl-covered tweed couches of days past. The technology, however, was more advanced than American flights, the international movie selection was excellent (Erin Brokovich!) You could watch the progress of the airplane from the various cameras placed on the outside, or from satellite as it moved North over Greenland, just shy of the North Pole and back down South on the other side of the Earth over Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan before making it over the very northern tip of India on the longest day of the year.
I thought I would do so much reading and drawing in my journal while traversing the bardo of the three flights: two-two hour flights that book-ended the sixteen hour flight from SF to Delhi. I had stayed awake the entire night before, trying to finish the last wedding thank you notes, (I wasn’t able to write all the letters I would have liked,) and packing everything we used in the days leading up to the move to India to be put in storage. So naturally, I slept nearly the whole trip, Jai Ray and I took turns laying down on each other’s laps since we were lucky to have an empty seat between us. It doesn’t really matter if a flight is 8 or 16 hours, after a certain point it is just long, and the body has a difficult time with staying still in low air pressure. International flights should be equipped with exercise equipment so a girl doesn’t end up with cankles for a week. (Dear International Airlines, circulation is kind of important.) At some point through the delirium it became evident to Jai M that we were going to miss our connecting flight out of Delhi since we boarded the plane after it was supposed to take off, and then sat on the tarmac for quite a long time. There wasn’t a connecting flight we could catch after ours until the next day, and I just really wanted the whole thing to be over in one go. I told the steward on the plane. He assured me, “You will not miss your flight ma’am.”
I watched the ground out the window as we got closer; small remote settlements scratched out of desert sand turned eventually into more lush and green fields partitioned for farmers in small organic shapes. Concrete high rise buildings grew out of the green ground like teeth. I ruminated over the landscape. There were only strings of discernible roads connecting little clustered townships that look more like hives than cities.
Riding the Lightning
I think someone must have worked some magic because when we got to Delhi there was a little airport transport car waiting to take us to Baggage Claim so we could pick up our bags and take them to yet another ticket counter before we could go through Customs (what is the point of checking bags if you have to pick them up and re-check them every time you make a connection?) Oddly enough, Customs was the easiest part of the whole trip. The agent took my passport and a photograph of me without me even noticing and handed my passport back without a word.
The Delhi airport was just as labyrinthine as SFO, except with less signs. (SFO doesn’t really have that many signs.) We found the security check for domestic flights when our plane was supposed to take off in ten minutes. While we were frantically taking all the electronics and liquids out of our bags the guards watched us with curious endearing looks and all the other passengers (who weren’t going through all the trouble) started crowding in front of us. I had to cut back in front of everyone to get through. When I was being scanned by the female security guard she asked me what we were doing in India and I told her that we are moving here. She was so shocked she forgot that she had her hand on my stomach mid-pat down, held the button of my jeans and asked questions almost more out of curiosity than concern. After being dismissed we packed our bags for the third frenzied time and started running with heavy backpacks full of equipment and food for the Celiac (we’re moving there, after all) to our plane that we were told was being held for us, but we weren’t told where… So running through the airport hoping we are going in the right direction we finally see a screen with information, and look at a flight that was leaving out of gate 56. We sprinted and power walked like Moms in the morning right past our gate all the way to the end of the terminal, just find out we have to go back and hope they are still holding the flight for us — thirty gates ago. Jai M ran ahead, er, back to try and hold the plane while Jai Ray and I, panting and limping as fast as we could spotted an airport vehicle and asked her to take us the last 10 gates because my muscles were literally on strike. She thought we were silly, “you can see it from here,” pointing. Seriously lady, we can’t run anymore can you please take us because we just rushed and ran for forty minutes nonstop immediately after getting off a sixteen hour flight, ok? Our flight was supposed to leave thirty minutes ago. Thank you very effing much. We got to ride, thank god. Jai M waived us to hurry to the jetway just in time to be blocked by three men strolling in front of us side by side like they were wading through the summer evening at the Alberta Street Fair. This made me very angry. I blurted out loud, “What the hell are they doing? They are getting on our plane, right? Does this mean I can calm down now?” India was giving me my first lesson. The sun finally set on the longest day of the year, and we rode a lightning storm all the way to the city nearest to our new home, bringing the rain with us.
While enjoying the cool breeze of the rain storm near the pool, we were welcomed into the country with generous hospitality by complete strangers staying in our hotel who took it upon themselves to entertain us, answer any questions we had about India, and offered to personally help us if we ever needed anything at all in the next year. In the short time we spent with them we made fast friends and were invited to their home city of Jaipur. We chatted with these very kind gentlemen until we could hold our eyelids open no longer, and excused ourselves for needing to lay down flat for the first time in over twenty eight hours, but not before they told us about India’s national mantra, a practice to treat guests like the gods that goes back millennia. I thought we were jumping in the dark when we made the first step on our journey to move to India, but it turned out we were jumping into blinding light. “Atithi Devo Bhava:” Guest Is God.