Ah! Incredible India!

For our annual trip to Chennai, we decided to take Jet Airways via Delhi. The husband convinced me that our 8 hour lay-over in Delhi would be spent in a lounge and therefore would not be unbearable. I immediately had visions of beds, comforters, hot showers and milk white towels. So we arrived in Delhi collected our bags, cleared customs and immigration and re-checked our bags for our domestic flight to Chennai, fortifying ourselves for the long haul before our flight. The walk through the airport to fulfill all these tasks enabled us to meet our daily fitness quota of steps ( just saying!). What we did not need to compound this trek was plush carpeting which created sufficient resistance for our 10 lb hand baggage to make it weigh all of 10 lbs as we dragged it over said carpet! Do we really need carpeting in a hot and dusty country which is not exactly known for stellar standards of hygiene? Only in Incredible India!

At the Jet Airways counter the staff member taking our bags pronounced that all lounges in the departure area were closed since no flights took off at night. But there were recliners! Not having eaten any of our meals on the plane, we were famished and somewhat deflated at the prospect of spending a long cold night in the empty departure lounge. Suku, thank God, discounted what this young man had said knowing that it is commonplace for people to speak authoritatively about something they know nothing about - in Incredible India! Also he was determined to locate the lounge and to open it if he had to.

So we sailed through security and found our bright and shiny lounge open and serving a dinner buffet. Not my fantasy lounge, but comfortable enough! We ate little since it was nearing midnight and we did not know how long the cooked dishes had been sitting on those warmers. All fresh salads were off limits given our paranoia over the water used to wash them, notwithstanding the locale. We then settled on our sofas. However sleep eluded what with the bright lights and the TVs all around that would not go off. When I finally dozed off for an hour, I was woken by the blare of loudspeakers in the airport relaying religious Sikh music of the Gurudwara Rahi singers - at any other hour of the day I would have been impressed. This would only happen in Incredible India!

At 4:30 am, famished, we made a beeline when they laid out the delightful breakfast spread. We filled our plates with idlis, 2 varieties of chutney and a bowl of piping hot sambar ( which tasted more like samburr), went back for paratha and a bowl of flavourful aloo baaji and yet again for finger sandwiches reminiscent of the colonial era. There was no room for fresh fruit, pancakes, eggs, toast, cereal or cookies. I downed a steaming hot latte over my titillated tongue just for that satisfying sooth of the hot liquid on the tingling tongue, brought on by the spicy food . Wait - was that a tiny critter on the plush carpet? Incredible India!

Ready and refreshed for the last leg of our journey to our Chennai destination, we started outside the lounge when the young girl making the announcements in her cheery voice at that early hour urged us to continue relaxing in the lounge till she announced the departure of our flight. Such customer service! We then walked through the massive airport with its atrium, shiny shops, restaurants conjuring up Indian street foods - pav baaji, chaat papri, a shop that peddled divinity, alongside another that sold wine and thought - only in Incredible India!

As we stepped off the airport in Chennai we noticed kitty corner, abutting it and without even a road separating the two, the familiar red and white stripes of a temple. Zoning? What's that? People rushed in and out with streaks of ash and vermilion on their foreheads, in bare feet, a beatific smile on their faces, uncaring of the heat, humidity, construction waste surrounding this recently opened airport. An attitude of curious smugness and self sufficiency, brought on by religiosity in the middle of chaos and squalor? That's the Incredible Indian!