"How long is your flight?" I never know. Days, it seems. I leave my office at 3:45 on a Monday afternoon, and arrive at my hotel in Bangalore on Wednesday morning. I know it isn't a two-day trip, really. Fatigue and boredom lengthen the hours, and they set in immediately. Idling with a cup of coffee, I watch the workers load food I will not eat onto the plane. The tall coffee is too much to drink in the time I have, but I try, moving the cup from hand to hand to cool my burning fingers. I don't want to sleep on the flight to London. If I do, I'll be awake on the India flight and land in Bangalore ready for bed at seven in the morning.
I take my aisle seat on the plane. The two places next to me are empty, but that can hardly last. I start reading. My airplane book is Tahir Shah's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a good choice, I think, for a trip to India. It is long, cheap, and makes light of the country's difficulties in a pleasing way. My reading is interrupted by the announcement of the cabin doors closing. I look round in surprise. The two seats next to me are still empty. Across the aisle, a man with a row to himself looks about with a similar expression of surprise and pleasure. The plane is half empty. I slide over to the middle seat, reminding myself that this is good news only in the very short term. This direct-to-London flight cuts hours off my travel time. I need to to be full and profitable. And I will not be so lucky on my next flight. London-India, any airport, is unfailingly full.
But my luck holds. The British flight attendant, a man, calls me darling in his charming accent. The flight is empty enough that the crew is good-humored to the end. I smile as he hands me an extra wine, and he says darling again. I wonder why I didn't find someone to call me darling that way all the time. A million reasons, of course, but for the moment this is very nice.
In London, halfway through the journey, the security check is strangely quick. I stroll through, and into the Wagamama. A tattooed Russian serves my gyoza. They are horrid dough balls with only a scrap of gristly, unidentifiable filling. Why oh why, Wagamama? Never mind. It's an airport. I pay a little dark-haired girl. She smiles merrily and tries to frighten me with tales of approaching snow, but I am too sleepy to worry. To keep myself from dozing off, I pace from one end of the terminal to the other, my duty free allowance bumping against my leg. Luck holds—the India flight is not full. There's an empty seat between me and the gentleman by the window. He is courteous and silent, pulling down the tray at the empty place so we can each use half of it. I drink another glass of wine and sleep.
The airport smells like India. It's new, gaily decorated, orange and brushed steel that already looks dated. Immigration is cheerfully inquisitive, asking about my name and work for amusement, not national security. My suitcases appear, and I wheel them outside, wondering at how easy this is.
Outside, the taxi drivers are anxious. Perhaps not enough people want a cab. I do, but approach them with care. A man bundled in a muted plaid blanket with a grey stocking cap on his head snatches at my cart. I let him take it, though I tense myself to dive after him in case he rushes past the line of waiting cabs. A boy, taller than I but rail-thin, rushes up and grabs the cart. A porter, I think, annoyed that all my change is at the bottom of my handbag. He eagerly shoves my bags in the back of an Indica. He puts the smaller duffel at the bottom, and props the larger case up on top of it at an uncomfortable angle. I would like to correct him, make him rearrange them, but the hopelessly buried tip money stops me. I get in the car as he slams the hatch shut.
I am surprised when he hops into the driver's seat. Forget rearranging the luggage, I should have asked for an older driver. It's too late now. We are in motion.
He drives just as you think a youngster would drive, barreling down the highway weaving right and left, but keeping his car more or less on top of the white dashed lane separator. The rule of the road in India is that biggest takes precedence, but he yields to no one, skinning past trucks and between buses as if we were in a video game. I look at the moon, almost full in the black morning sky, and am silent.
After a time, we veer off the road into a gas station. The attendant approaches. He is a scrawny old man, a typical station attendant except for one thing. He has a fleece blanket decorated with bright pink and white buffalo checks wrapped around his shoulders. The white squares of the pattern are ornamented with smiling teddy bear faces. The blanket is not merely flung about him, but carefully draped in tidy pleats. His turban, folded with the same care as his blanket, is also pink and white plaid, shot with a bit of spring green. I would like to take a picture, but rolling down the window would attract notice, and it's not ladylike to photograph strange men in the night. I content myself with looking.
We drive on, weaving in and out of traffic as if we each have nine lives. A yellow bus, a private intercity bus, is merging into traffic. We are between it and a cement Jersey barrier, squarely in the bus driver's blind spot, the space before us narrowing. I squeak with dismay. The bus falters for a moment and my driver scoots through the narrowing gap. He glances back at me, grinning, but does not slow down.
The sky is fading to grey. We speed up Brigade Road, turn, but my driver zips past the street where the hotel is. I point this out. He pulls over, sheepish for the first time. We agree on how he will make his way back to the hotel, and he does. He rolls into the hotel complex and up to the restaurant door rather than the hotel entrance, pursing his lips with embarrassment. I nearly tell him to drive up to the correct door, but decide that carrying my suitcases the extra feet is a good penance for him. He hasn't the sense to pull the car up himself. He casts me a last grin, still sheepish but irrepressibly mischievous. I hand him a tip, and he zooms off into the morning.
