Phil online

Last year I travelled to India for two weeks on a business trip. We barely made our connection onto India Air in Europe. Our luggage was not so lucky.

We waited for our bags to arrive on the carousel. They never came. Someone announced something in Hindi or Tamil, and the throng of waiting travellers mobbed the toll booth cum information desk. Apparently we all had to fill out forms describing our lost bags. I was in the middle of the crowd, but I was out of my element. Eventually I was one of the last people to see the clerk.

His English was weak, but he pointed at various forms, asked for ID, verified my address and so on. And then he disappeared — with my passport. Maybe he couldn’t explain himself well enough in English, but I had no idea where he was. He returned 10 frightening minutes later.

Then we went to see Der Commisar of Lost Luggage. This guy was dressed in a military uniform with lots of decorations on his chest. He seemed very powerful. His job, it seems, was to approve my Lost Luggage form. This must be a position of great power in India because the clerk assisting me approached him timidly.

He was busily debating the competence of the previous clerk when we arrived, complaining about missing information and the wrong color form. When I approached, he took my form — and then slid it back. “Signature,” he scowled at me. Then he looked away to help the next peon in line.

I couldn’t understand his accent, but the clerk pointed to a line on a form I hadn’t seen before and asked me to sign it. I did. We got back in line.

Der Commisar was more furious this time — apparently someone had left most of the form blank! Well, at least we weren’t that stupid; I smiled approvingly at my clerk. He was breaking out in a sweat.

I approached his highness’ desk again. He turned to look at my form and slid it back at me. “I already signed this one.” What? No! No, see… you refused to sign it before. He ignored me and took the next victim. I looked to my clerk, who bravely stood behind me and egged me on.

I waited for his majesty to finish, and then I thrust my form at him. He took it and looked at it. His face got angrier. “What is this? You,” he pointed to another clerk-and-traveller across the room, “Bring me that form.” Then he muttered, “I have already seen this name. Something is not right. Why so many forms from this person?”

I explained to him what happened — he had declined it earlier for lack of signature. He looked at me like I was an insolent child; then clarity dawned on his face. “Oh, yes. I see,” and he slid the form back to me — still unsigned. My clerk looked like he was going to soil himself.

“No,” I said. “I need your signature.”

“What?” He looked at the form as if for the first time. And then he signed it, smiled at me indulgently, and forgot I existed.

Finally, I thought. I’m done. And we went back to the toll booth. The clerk gave me a copy of my form, complete with his grace’s signature. But he still had my passport. And he seemed to have forgotten all about me, because he was suddenly on some new task I hadn’t known about. He was busily counting out a stack of 100 Rupee notes — money.

I politely waited, not wanting to mess up his counting, until he was finished so I could ask him for my passport back. He finished counting. Then he push the stack of money in front of me and said, “Count it.” What? Am I his assistant now?

As I counted, I said, “What is this for?”

“Sorry for the inconvenience.”

What?

“We are sorry for the inconvenience.” He indicated a form. Among the many tick marks and luggage brands, next to my signature, was a notation: “R8,000″. He was giving me 8,000 Rupees. That’s about $200. I finished counting the 80 notes, he stuffed them in an envelope, handed me my passport, and I was on my way.

Welcome to India!

—

We arrived at the hotel at about 3am. They welcomed us like it was the middle of the afternoon. Such gracious people!

I asked if I could get laundry done this late. “Of course, sir. I will send someone up to your room.”

In my room, I took off my clothes in which I had been travelling for 26 hours. I folded them as neatly as I could. And then I put on the tiniest robe I have ever seen in a hotel. Such slight people!

As the laundry bellman disappeared with all the clothes I owned in the country of India, I realized how naked I was. Aside from the robe, which would not close in front of me anyway, all I had to hide myself was this hotel room.

And so I was trapped, naked, at the mercy of strangers, in a foreign land full of small people.

—

At 9am, my clothes returned to me, folded and pinned, in a cloth bag. Two days later, exhausted by my winter clothes in 85 degree heat, I bought 8,000 rupees worth of new clothes. That afternoon, my luggage arrived.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2005 at 2:50 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.