We were about 20 minutes away from Bangalore. I had eaten my 'Muslim meal' which I did not recall ordering but ate gladly since it was basically chicken curry, rice and rasmalai. This British man on my first flight offered to buy it from me if I didn't want it. I took one look at the meal he was about to eat and gasped in horror. Anyway that was 20 hours ago and now I was almost home. I wasn't sure what to feel.
I was about to get emotional when the pilot made an announcement. There was fog in Bangalore. Nobody took him very seriously. "Still it is early no, it'll clear soon" the knowledgeable uncles said. Ten minutes later we were told the fog was still pretty bad. Bad enough for them to take us to madras. Madras!
A couple of hours later we were still at the airport. We were asked to collect our baggage. I was able to locate only one bag and two kind men were helping me locate the other. Finally they said "inge ille ma, neenge anga poi complain pannange."
After filling out the required paper work I went outside expecting a bus to take us to our hotel. They had promised us we'd get to Bangalore later that evening on the same flight. Instead I found myself waiting with a group of people led by a man in a safari suit and a sign. He was sending us in taxis to the hotel. I was made to get in a taxi with a middle aged man and his bags. I sat in the back with some 6 suitcases that looked like they were about to collapse any minute. To make matters worse our driver was mad. I mean sure I hadn't driven in India in 5 years but Houston had plenty of rash drivers. This guy was on a whole other level though. He drove the entire way on the wrong side of the road. As soon as he saw a vehicle approach he would merge to the left. I was genuinely terrified. I distracted myself by looking out the windows at signs like 'Fitter, Tuner - 10th pass' and giant politicians in cooling glasses. The driver at this point had started complaining about safari suit man who had forgotten to give him a receipt. He said he would need it at the hotel so he could get paid. Co passenger started to reassure him in Hindi. Driver looked at him like he was crazy.
"Hindi nahin aata?"
"Tora Tora aata hain saar. Aana yeneke receipt kudukalanga."
I had to translate for the two. It wasn't pretty.
It took an hour to get to the hotel but once we got there I was very impressed. They checked under the car for bombs. They checked my bags, they gave me a serious pat down. It was way more serious than any airport pat down I had received.
The room was nice. I was very excited at the thought of taking a bath after 24 hours. I had also spotted my first hot tamizh boy in the lobby. I was generally in a much better mood.
