The eight hour ordeal inside the Air France 🇫🇷 flight ended as the aircraft started to descend over New Delhi. From the pilot's voice he seemed to be relieved as he announced first in French and then English - "Welcome to New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. It's 12.30 in morning, hazy, 21 degree C (70° Fahrenheit) outside. During one of my earlier trips just before landing at the Delhi Airport came abruptly the voice of an exalted teen sitting close to me exclaiming to his buddy next row, "OI UTTH, BAIN**OD DILLI A GAYEE" (Get up, So and So the sister slammer, Delhi has arrived). More than the pilot, I found the teen's welcome far more enthusiast and the most appropriate way of welcoming to Delhi. As "Jai Maharastra" goes with Mumbai, Oh' Calcutta to Kolkata, "Jay Jagannath" to Odisha, Behn**od (sister slammer) fits well to the Dilli milieu.
It was a grand standing Welcome to Delhi, Punjabi style, where a sentence can start with Bain**od (occasionally sounds as Pain**od, interspersed with a few liberal dosages of Bai**od and ends with Bai**od. It is how the self proclaimed Dill walle (Big Hearted) Dilli walle (Delhites) often greet each other. Same goes in the Punjab province of Pakistan. When Sunil Gavaskar was batting in Lahore in 1978 in his first tour to the country, he was puzzled by some Pakistani players frequently uttering "Pain**od" which sounded like "Pant-Shirt" to Sunil until his skipper Bishen Singh Bedi confirmed him what it meant, Punjabi style.
Bai**od" is not such a bad word in Delhi and Punjab. Apart from usual meaning, it can stand for multiple euphemisms, to describe a scene or situation. "Bai**od KYA THAND HAI YAAR" (My friend, it's so cold), Bai**od MEIN GIR JAUNGA Bai**od (I will fall down, spoken after sighting a pretty girl), Bai**od KYA MATCH THA (what a game it was) ! Friends hug each other, Aa GALE LAG JA OI Bai**od (give me a hug, my dear friend, you the sister slammer).
At the IGI Airport in Delhi I breezed through the immigration which was a shoo in for me, though the counters looked short handed, probably due to upcoming Holi festival - a big festival in North India. The Terminal 3 is quite impressive. Restrooms (toilets) were maintained nice and clean. No strong smell of ubiquitous Phenyle and dark brown betel stains at corners of walls. Our International Airports can now be considered truly world class. I saw a digital bill board proudly displaying Mahatma Gandhi's picture, followed by a visual of Chivas Regal Scotch. Ironically our Father of Nation was never a fan of consumerism, nor he extolled us to drink Chivas Regal. Many streets in big cities in India bustling with consumerism are named as M.G. Road, after a man who abhorred consumerism and extolled simple living.
I remember that in the year 1998, a quarter century ago when I was a bit excited as I was coming to India to get married, no sooner I came out of the IGI Airport in the middle of night than I was treated like a hapless hare amid hounds baying for my blood in form of haranguing touts. I was forced to do an about turn and beat a hasty retreat, only to come out at break of the dawn to be ragged again. It was not unusual then for hapless passengers like me to dish out a $20 note (Bill) to buy themselves out of harassment at the Customs department. Such things are long passe.
After checking in for my last leg of flight to Bhubaneswar, I settled down on a reclining chair as the morning sun brightened on the horizon, revealing the array of Aircrafts on the turmac, spraying them with Orange hue. No sooner I reached the boarding gate for the Vistara flight to Bhubaneswar, than I could recognize the typical Odia crowd close by from their looks, language and mannerism. I just remembered in one of my prior trips, I was chit chatting with a guy sitting next to me. Before boarding the flight the gentleman excused himself and went to a corner letting out a loud fart and heaving a heavy shy of getting relieved of a burden of something stuck inside his abdomen. He returned back to his seat and found me trustworthy enough to request - "AGYAN ETE SAKALU GHARU BAHARI THILI. JHAADA SAFA HEI NATHILA. JOR RE JHAADA LAGI LANI. TIKE MO BAG TA DEKHANTU" (As I left home too early in morning, I couldn't get a clean bowel movement. Now got to visit the loo. Please look after my bag). For some one who was scared by his thunderous fart, it was difficult not to oblige his order. There should be a rule for passengers to evaluate the contents of their lower intestine before boarding the flight.
Another time I saw a guy surreptitiously scratching their private parts in public, grimacing with an orgasmic pleasure of big sighs "Aah, Ooh" laced relief from the itch as the heat and humidity of India can cause real havoc down under. When our eyes met he pretended to adjust his belts with a "Not I" look on his face.
The domestic terminal 1 was bit chaotic, especially around the security gates. There were lot of people taking the morning flight. The departure area of the Domestic Airport before boarding resemble our BADAMBADI Bus stand in Cuttack. The Airport Authorities and CISF were doing a decent job, however the public were hardly cooperative, some sudden stepping for screening even before the other person has finished. Social distancing - just forget it.
The Airline crew were goading passengers like cattle towards to board the flight (hats off to the person who coined the name cattle class for economy class). Throughout the journey I watched folks drooling over their smartphones. All heads down like Ostrich, they were busy fingering over the glaring screens of their devices. I have seen this in America, not unusual and unexpected in a nation where individualism rules the roost. But I have observed the same in Europe, Middle East, Singapore and in India. Asian culture is more social and group oriented, where people enjoy a tete-a-tete, even with strangers. I saw many, including Airline crew busy dragging bag in one hand and texting using the other, clinging to their phones and baby sitting their devices.
Growing up back in the days in India, we use to chat about anything and everything under the sun, covering topics ranging from "NANA BAHA GHARA RU, NANI BAHA GHAR PARYANTA" (From Dad's marriage to Sister's marriage). Perhaps we have gone electronic doing e-Khatti (chit chat) on social media. In the year 1979, barely a 10 year old, I accompanied my Uncle to a play at his Alma Mater Vani Bihar of Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. It was a symbolic Odia play which I could hardly understand, but still remember those lines by an actor on stage.
OTA PARI JIBA BHAI
NAHI NAHI HOIRE,
JIBARE MANISHA SAB
OTA HEI JIBARE.
PITHI RE KUJA, KI MANOHARA....
Roughly transliterated,
You will become a camel, uttering no no,
Humans will become camel as days go,
How wonderful to have humps on back !
Replace OTA (Camel) by OTA PAKHI (Ostrich) and KUJA (Hump) with Smartphones. We have become Ostriches burying our heads inside our phones, the way an Ostrich buries its head inside sand. The same drama is now enacted in another era more than 40 years later. The nondescript person who wrote this Odia Drama (play) in 1970s was so prophetic and was certainly way ahead of his time. More later...
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