I sit here in a familiar airport lounge surrounded by unfamiliar people who keep staring at me. I’m at the Shenzhen, Bao’an airport waiting to get on a flight to Chengdu. I was to go to Lhasa but due to reasons mainly political, which I won’t go into, I was denied a permit. So I’m off to Chengdu for four days and let’s see how I feel about it when I’m back.
Why am I writing this? In the hope that it’ll be published and made and I’ll get to be a travel author and gallivant all around the world? Or it’ll get made into a movie and Brad Pitt will play me. That’ll happen the day an Indian walks on the moon (see! I’m an eternal optimist!) . Unfortunately I don’t articulate my thoughts very well and most of my plot lines are weak. I’m just writing this in the hope that it’ll make for some happy memories ten years later and I’ll be able to remember the people and places and I saw and the feelings that I remember.
So I’m sitting in an airport waiting to catch my flight. Let’s talk about a little about airports shall we? The majority’s opinion seems to center on the fact that airports are filled with bored, angry and irritated people who’ve just realized that their luggage is on their way to Inner Mongolia instead of Hong Kong. I must iterate that I do not hold this opinion. I love airports. I love railway stations even more! Yep, I love the smelly, hot, shit infested railway stations even more! And I’m confident that I’ll love them to my dying day. Airports are wonderful for two reasons. The first one being that they are the best places to watch people over a prolonged period. Being a person with limited communication skills, (I’ve been told by friends that I have the social and communication skills of a two day old dead baby wall lizard) I find it most comforting to simply look at people and imagine how their lives must be. Add to that the fact that in all probability I won’t be ever see these people again, I firmly lick my chops and get ready for a massive bout of unabashed staring. And being in an airport means that I’m going somewhere! The thought of that fills me with as much excitement that it did when I was a kid. I don’t remember a single time I’ve been on a plane when I didn’t ask for a window seat and look out of the window for at least 75 percent of the journey. A friend once told me that one of the most beautiful sights in the world is looking at city lights in night when a plane takes off. I couldn’t agree more.
Let me tell you something about us Indians. Most of us haven’t traveled in an airplane and my generation has traveled mostly in second class railway compartments (read non air conditioned) perfectly comfortable even in summer forty five degree day temperatures. I remember once when I was a kid and we’d traveled from pondicherry to Delhi in peak summer. To add to that the train was 10 hours late. When we finally reached delhi station after a grueling journey of two days and two nights I threw a huge tantrum because I didn’t want to get off the train (chuk chuk gadi). I am sure that my parents wanted to put me up for adoption that day or return me to the vegetable seller they claimed to have bought me from. I’m a little older now and realize that:-
1) I was not purchased from a vegetable seller for a sum of 15 rupees
2) Noodles are not snake babies
3) There was no “good” Darshan in the closet who was ready to take my place if I did anything bad.
4) I’m NEVER EVER going to travel second class again
5) If my kid were to do what I did some fifteen years ago, I’d DEFINITELY put him/her up for adoption.
I still remember the excitement when I got to travel in an air conditioned compartment the first time. By these standards traveling in an airplane is a huge event! And even though air travel has become much cheaper with low cost airlines coming in and people having much more money to spend, I am always filled with excitement when I get on a plane. I am never going to become one of those people pretend fake boredom just to get the message across that they’ve done this so many times before that they’re now bored of it. I know that that might actually be the case with many people but I’ll try to make sure that I don’t become one of them.
I hate bus stations but we’ll get into that another day.
As the great master Yoda would put it, “Struck by wanderlust, you are”. Yes sir I am.
So let’s get back to where we started out. I’m sitting in an airport lounge. Sitting next to me is a Chinese guy with two kids aged around 5-6 years running in circles around him. There’s a couple sitting opposite me and the girl keeps staring at me. I’ve been in china before and I’ve now realized that the reason for the staring is NOT because I’m handsome ( I wish ) but because she’s seen something that looks like me probably for the first time.
If you’re a foreigner in China get ready to have people staring at you 24 * 7. …
It’s like I’m a walking talking zoo every time I’m in China. As I look up I see a shop that says “Ma Yun Fat”. That’s right. Fat. People actually walk into a shop and pay hard earned money to buy “fat”. The words “saturated fat”, “complex carbs”, “atkins” are floating around in my head. In all probability it’s a translation error but I don’t investigate further. I’m too comfortable in my seat to get up. Besides I have other things to do.
So as I sit in my chair waiting, I think about something that my friends are most likely to ask me when I get back; “How was china?” How is China? What do I feel about it? I’ve spent about seven months here spread over three trips. Not long I know, but I’ve still managed to develop a clunky opinion and theory about how the place works. “Do I like it?” I must confess like an agnostic or bisexual I’m somewhere in between. Sometimes I’m struck by how similar we are, Chinese and Indians that is. It used to be Hindi Chini bhai bhai but it’s not like that any more. I must confess that I don’t know my politics very well. But I know that most Indians consider the 62’ war as china stabbing us in the back. Was it? I’m not sure. But I’m convinced that what they did was not right. Weren’t what they were trying to do similar to what Japan did in WW II? Why did they do it? What is the version that Chinese kids study in school in history lesson? I now work in a Chinese company and I’m going to ask one of my colleagues someday.
I’d been to Rajasthan about two years ago (another chapter on that) and stayed in this nice hotel in Jaipur. Mr. Mahendra Singh, the proprietor, a nice old man asked me where I was from. When I told him Bangalore as expected he asked me whether I was in software. Why do all people assume that any one in their 20’s works in software in Bangalore? Unfortunately they are right most of the time. And he was right in my case. The story goes that you close your eyes and throw a stone in Bangalore and you either hit a software engineer or a dog. When I told him that I work for a Chinese company he said something funny. He said, “Oh! So we’re making money for the Chinese now?”
Yes, I work for a big Chinese company and I love it. I love my work, the people I work with, the fact that I get to drive my own car to work everyday, the fact that I can afford to buy an apartment of my own. Would we have all this if we didn’t make “money” for American / European / Australian / and now Chinese companies? I wish I’d told him, “No Mr. Singh, I make money for myself”. But all I managed was an uncomfortable grin. We all know that the most appropriate thing to say always occurs to us 15 minutes after we ought to have said it. There’s only one time I’ve come up with a good riposte in my life and that has been to a couple of racist white ladies I met in Beijing. (I walked up to a couple of white ladies who were standing on a street corner, looking for directions to Tiananmen Square. One lady assumed that I was trying to sell her something and kept waving me away! I explained to them that I was just looking for directions. While walking away I told them that I hoped that this was embarrassing for them as it was for me. I now wish I had added the words “racist white bitch” too!)
Uffff. Too much digression. I’ve just realized that I’ve written three pages about something that I never intended to write about in the first place.
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