Delhi to Mumbai

For anyone who is curious, an evening flight from the US puts you in India the following evening. That is where I am at now, my first time in India. Stepping off the plane and into the airport I am hit with my first taste of the country. Reality quickly tells me that in almost every basic way of life things will be different than what I am used to. The ceilings are a little lower, I'm feeling humidity and it's January, there are rows of houseplants in the airport walls, even the pastels colors seem random, and somehow the 'feel' of being in an airport is not there. I don't sense any urgency.

There was a mishap with my bags so I have to go back and forth to find them and doing so requires that I leave baggage claim and go outside. Walking past security and up a gradual and wide ramp I am surrounded by maybe three hundred people pressed up against the guard rails. Men, women, and families are packed sold-out-U2-concert tight and I feel like Hulk Hogan walking out of the tunnel except my hulkamaniacs are just peering quietly at me. Keep in mind that it is nearly midnight on a Monday so Im not sure why such a crowd has formed. What is everyone doing here? Am I missing something? At the end of the ramp I reach even ground with the gathering and the relative size of these people becomes apparent There is a distinct possibility that in a nation of 1.1 Billion people there is no one else like me. Some of the adults must weigh as much as my leg. Most people look like they weigh a buck-ten and everyone looks at me like I am Shrek.

But the sheer QUANTITY of people is the crazy part. If there truly is wisdom in crowds than the Indian people are geniuses. I feel like I'm on a movie set with a thousand extras hangin out between takes. The cars are small as hell, of unknown models, and honking every two seconds. Between the countless cars are motorcycles and these three wheel thingies that look like motorized rickshaws. In order to make my next flight, which is to Mumbai (used to be Bombay - you think Bombay Company is pissed??), I must walk through this area. It is where you pick people up or drop them off and frankly a lot of each is happening. The commotion of the scene in front of me is similar to what would take placelike a nationwide evacuation was just called. If I ever had a fetish fantasy to feel like Godzilla this would be my heaven. All the signs of chaos are in front of me (except these signs are in 0.8 the scale) but something about this scene is missing from what chaos should feel like and that missing element is making me more antsy.