How Bazaar

I have arrived in India!

I had very low expectations for Air India's coach section, but I must admit, it was not as bad as I imagined (no free range chickens or anything, nor a giant metal crate ala Spies Like Us).

The space was tight but manageable. I am glad I had an aisle seat. The food was decent enough and the booze was free. Although every time I asked for scotch or whiskey, I got brandy (which is NOT the same), but who am I to complain about free brandy? I will not recommend a brandy and Coke though. Brandy and Ginger Ale was ok.

I got my bag fairly quickly and made it through Customs without a shake-down bribe this time. My co-worker, Sunil, was not as lucky. His flight from DC to JFK was canceled, so American put him on an US Airways shuttle flight to LGA. Unfortunately, his checked bag did not make it to NY before our flight left for India. He had hoped it would get transferred over but apparently it did not. Now he is hoping it arrives tonight or tomorrow morning since we leave for Mumbai tomorrow afternoon. I can just imagine his bag chasing us around India.

A word on Sunil: he was born in India but moved to Brooklyn when he was 3. He is a US citizen but he speaks fluent Hindi, as that's what his parents and extended family speak. He went to law school in NY and now is a recovering attorney.

Since Sunil doesn't have any work clothes for tomorrow and is not confident in the airline delivering his bag tonight, Sunil and I went out to buy him clothes at a street bazaar (it was still open at 7pm on a Sunday).

The shopkeeper seemed amused by Sunil and his lost bag predicament. He understood the situation and started pulling out shirt and tie combinations, horrible horrible combinations - green striped shirts with yellow paisley ties, orange shirts with electric purple ties were some of the highlights. Sunil finally settled on three shirts, one black, one grey and one white, plus two normal looking blue ties. He chose three pairs of pants, which the guy was willing to (and did) cuff right there as we were waiting. He also picked out a small suitcase, a belt and three pairs of boxers. He got all of this, including the tailoring, for 5300 Rupees, which is about $120.

After the shopping trip, we were going to find dinner when Sunil's cousin called and invited us to dinner at Sunil's uncle's house. We went. There were five families living in one 4-story house. There were kids all over the place. We talked about our kids. Sunil has two of his own. We discussed the fact that they were all still awake (it was after 9pm at that point). Sunil's cousin's take: Early to bed means early to rise. Apparently if they go to bed at 11pm, they don't wake up until 8 or 9 am. Hard to argue with that. If only Sabrina or Stephen worked that way...

The dinner was nice. The food was not too spicy (apparently Sunil had asked them to back it down for me). We had a few drinks - Sunil's uncle was amused I drank scotch neat (I didn't tell him it was for defensive purposes). We stayed out WAY to late. We returned to the hotel around 11:45pm and I immediately crashed into bed.

What a 1st day!