Day 1
As I exit the plane at Indira Ghandi International Airport, a couple of initial words to describe Delhi hit me: Dusty, Disorienting. To be fair, it’s going to be hard to gain your bearings in a new time zone at 3 AM when it’s 4:30 PM in the time zone you’re used to. As I walk down the exit ramp from the plane, I find myself in a white fog of dust that doesn’t lift even indoors in the terminal. As confusing as I find things in the airport, one word I can’t use here is Disorganized. There seems to be as many workers in the airport as there are travelers passing through, and for each job in the US that would occupy one person, here in India there are at least three people to do it. At the baggage claim there is one person who removes the business class luggage from the conveyer, who hands it to a second person who places it on the ground. A third person straightens the suitcases into orderly rows. There are another two men hovering about, assisting them. What struck me as funny was that they were all standing within 5 feet of each other; an initial glimpse into job creationism in India, where the population exceeds opportunities and so processes are designed to be labor-intensive. Despite the 5 people we have to offload our luggage, I still find myself waiting on my own, despite the Priority tag which had been affixed to it. Unbeknownst to me, Bryan snapped this picture of me in what I’m told is my impatient stance- a position I’ll be standing in all too often if I don’t learn to relax while I’m here.
As I exit the plane at Indira Ghandi International Airport, a couple of initial words to describe Delhi hit me: Dusty, Disorienting. To be fair, it’s going to be hard to gain your bearings in a new time zone at 3 AM when it’s 4:30 PM in the time zone you’re used to. As I walk down the exit ramp from the plane, I find myself in a white fog of dust that doesn’t lift even indoors in the terminal. As confusing as I find things in the airport, one word I can’t use here is Disorganized. There seems to be as many workers in the airport as there are travelers passing through, and for each job in the US that would occupy one person, here in India there are at least three people to do it. At the baggage claim there is one person who removes the business class luggage from the conveyer, who hands it to a second person who places it on the ground. A third person straightens the suitcases into orderly rows. There are another two men hovering about, assisting them. What struck me as funny was that they were all standing within 5 feet of each other; an initial glimpse into job creationism in India, where the population exceeds opportunities and so processes are designed to be labor-intensive. Despite the 5 people we have to offload our luggage, I still find myself waiting on my own, despite the Priority tag which had been affixed to it. Unbeknownst to me, Bryan snapped this picture of me in what I’m told is my impatient stance- a position I’ll be standing in all too often if I don’t learn to relax while I’m here.
That leaves- disorienting. I found my driver with my name on a placard (not as exciting at 2:30 AM as I had hoped the experience would be), and he led me to my car. I rode though a maze of three story concrete buildings- all shuttered shops with dark apartments overhead, with no visible landmarks with which to orient myself. After an unknown number of minutes my building appeared like a barge in the fog; the illuminated "The Grand" sign barely cutting through the haze.
I signed for my cab, and stepped out into my new home.
posted by Jason at 3:00 PM
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