Take Your Protein Pills and Strap Your Helmet On - Part 1
Bengaluru, we have a problem
I went to India a month back and got a story even before I stepped off a plane. There are more India story posts here, here and here. In Trip Reports you can find more travel stories from around the world. Technically they should technically be called Tripping Reports. Not what you think — I am just mostly stumbling around.
This became too long for one post. So here is Part 1. Part 2 will come up next week.
Prologue
The “India is not for beginners” meme deserves an Olympic gold medal (we can add to our count). Like a modern-day Thirukkural, it hides a vast truth—that India’s ability to blindside you with chaos is unlimited.
Chaos is so woven into the fabric of reality here that it lurks in every dark alley, grins through the open potholes and runs out of the blue across the road (often in the form of a street dog).
I started writing Could Be Worse in 2019 while still navigating the chaos of daily existence in India (mind you, I lived in a cosy bubble). It was my survival mantra - one that millions of Indians and I use every other day.
Got side-swiped by a bus and walked away with just a few bruises? Could’ve been worse—you could’ve ended up under the damn thing.
Streets flooded again from the rain? Could’ve been worse—you could’ve been wading alongside confused crocodiles.
Living outside India has softened me. The dents and bruises of bumping against chaos have healed a bit, and as such, I mentally prepare myself for it whenever I go back.
But thanks to Could Be Worse, I weirdly look forward to it! Because it means posts like this. Over the past few years, this damn blog has wormed deep into my brain matter. The blame lies entirely on the couple of hundred of you who read this, making me think that this is a legitimate endeavour for an adult.
Now, when chaos looms, I find myself gleefully rubbing my hands like a pantomime villain, much to N’s regular frustration.
Three weeks back, I travelled to India, and as always, I was looking for new stories to tell here. Something happened even before I stepped out of the plane.
This is that story.
The Maya of time
“Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!
Whenever I reach the gate at Bangkok airport for my India flight, it feels like I’m stepping through a tear in the fabric of reality.
This time around, my flight didn’t just take off on time—it took off earlier than scheduled.
No, not a tear in the fabric of reality —Reality was wobbling on its feet, about to faceplant like a drunk uncle outside the TASMAC liquor store. (for those unaware of TASMAC follow the wiki link to learn about this venerable institution run by the government of Tamilnadu for the welfare of its citizens).
Naturally, I fired off a tweet the moment the plane landed.
Can airlines just take off whenever? Like, 20 minutes early? Is international aviation no different than road trips with my dad?
[“We’re leaving at 6 am sharp!” he’d say; He’d be prowling and hustling us by 4:30 am. We’d already be halfway to the destination by 5.30 am.]
It made me ponder—what’s the point of wasting all that ink printing departure times?
It shouldn't have surprised me because time, in India, is a concept of an idea of a notion.
A Side Snippet: Kala, that seductive mistress
Older Indians often complain that younger ones don’t respect or value our ancient culture anymore. I disagree. When it comes to the big stuff, the fundamental truths of life, we’re still deeply rooted in our ancient traditions.
For example, in how we treat time.
Vedanta teaches us that reality itself is an illusion (Maya). And since time (Kala) is part of that illusion, it’s also just a made-up concept, existing purely in the recesses of your mind. Annoyingly enough, modern science backs this up—time is really just a measure of entropy.
Steeped in this ancient wisdom, India plays Whose Time Is It Anyway? A game where everything is made up and the seconds don’t matter.
The ideal Indian treats Kala much the same way as road rules, queues and personal space — with casual indifference. He never commits the grave sin of mentioning a specific time.
Your plumber will promise you he will come “on Friday” or if he is very specific, “before evening.” Carefully note that the Friday in question could be any of the future Fridays.
People plan dinners and meetups with a clear understanding that it’ll happen sometime after the sun sets and before the restaurant closes.
The AC technician will be“back in his hometown for a function” and keep that line going for two weeks, each time swearing he’ll be back in a couple of days.
Government websites will give no ETAs except to let you know that they’re “processing” whatever was sent to be processed. It will happen when it is destined to happen.
Unfortunately, the modern world isn’t so evolved. Quite annoyingly, it has clocks and meetings. The ideal Indian, thus forced into the shackles of committing to a time, rebels by treating time as a suggestion rather than a rule.
Meetings that begin at 1 p.m. mean our rebel will “think” about finding a room at 1 p.m.
Some evil force cursed me with an obsessive level of anxiety around timeliness forcing me to drift far away from the glorious precepts of Advaita.
Consequence: I insist on getting to airports with enough buffer, show up to meetings unfashionably on time and even to casual drink meetups with friends ahead of anyone else. I am always the one sending the painfully awkward, “I’m here, where are you guys?” message.
The truth is, being this person in India is a one-way ticket to unhappy land.
Back to the story.
Despite understanding India’s open relationship with time, I was pretty rattled when the plane landed so early.
That. Just. Doesn’t. Happen.
What I didn’t realise was that, by firing off that tweet, I’d done the equivalent of unfurling my lanky middle finger at agents of Chaos. It decided to get its gnarly hands in the mix.
A Plane Comes to a Gate
For a shorter recounting, you can read the live Twitter thread I wrote as the fumbles unfolded. Now that a couple of weeks have passed and I've successfully learned absolutely nothing from the experience, here's the longer, more detailed write-up.
“Wait till Biggus Dickus hears of this”
—Monty Python
Monty Python never did a sketch with a plane, but do not worry—India’s got us covered.
Having flown in tin cans a few hundred times by now, I believe that the least stressful part of any flight is once the plane lands safely. It’s when my sphincter finally unclenches. However, for hundreds of passengers in India, it’s the opposite. It’s pucker time!
When seatbelt signs gain sentience, they’ll quickly get depressed about the futility of their existence in Indian planes. Even as the plane taxis to the gate and the exhausted air hostesses wave, gesture, scold and shout for passengers to sit back down, the purge begins.
Uncles, aunties, kids, and the occasional elderly all leap in unison from their seats with newfound energy and synchronicity that could win a few medals. A machine gun rat-a-tat echoes through the plane as overhead bins fling open. Elbows meet torsos. Pelvis meets butts. Faces get scrunched under stinky armpits. There is but one system at work here: Every man for himself.
All of this happens while the plane’s wheels haven’t stopped spinning, and the pilot hasn’t turned off all the knobs that I presume they turn off when they land. Air traffic control is still to assign a gate.
Wanting no part in the melee, I usually prefer the window seat. There’s no way to stay up in the aisle seat unless you enjoy feeling the warm press of an impatient passenger’s pelvis on your arm.
That day, I was in my usual window seat. The plane had finally come to a stop at the gate. A full five minutes passed, and nothing happened. The sardines in the aisles waited in extreme anticipation. I looked out of the window to see what was going on and noticed two things:
The bridge to deboard wasn’t connected yet.
Instead, right outside the plane were five men milling about. They stood without the urgency of airport workers who were supposed to be doing something.
Classic signs.
The lizard part of my brain woke up. This means something was off. The machine had sputtered somewhere, and suddenly, these men had found time and space to assemble here because they knew.
Some as yet unknown benign chaos was unfolding in front of my eyes.
I snapped a photo of the scene and made a quick decision—I was going to live tweet whatever chaos unfolded next.
To be continued next week….
Could be Worse,
Tyag
I do not know what will happen next but you've given sufficient intro to expect it will be much worse than I could ever imagine. Laughed out loud a few times AND feel educated (taken with a generalized grain of salt, of course)