“Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm”: Charles DeGaulle to Indira Ghandi International Airport

The flight from France to New Delhi may as well have never happened. I tried to stay awake and do some work with the hopes of off-setting some of the jet-lag. Motivated, I popped on my head phones and, with I-Pod blasting, I tried to draft a partnership agreement that needed to be finished.

The work was so riveting that it had me out in about 5 minutes, only to be woken intermittently by an ill-tempered French stewardess who felt it crucial that I accept the baguette she was waggling in my face (which I accepted but only out of fear of the consequences that were promised in her icy glare). I would consume said bread product and, shortly after, I would pass out again only to have the strange baguette ritual repeated at interval throughout the flight.

I awoke as we were about to land to the stewardess wagging her finger (not a baguette this time….but it smelled like it) in my face saying something in French despite the fact that it had been established hours previously that I, in fact, was not French nor did I speak French. Nodding dumbly, I wiped the drool off my face and opened the shade as we descended into a foggy night (or so I thought) in Delhi.

Customs was a blur and not the most unpleasant customs experience I have had. Aaron warned me about the airport with strong language such as “massive chaos” and “total insanity” and my impression thus far was that it wasn’t that bad. As I sat atop a luggage cart awaiting my luggage, I tuned into the fact that “Careless Whispers” by George Michael was blasting over the loud speakers. I chuckled to myself as I saw how many Indians and non-Indians alike were mouthing the words and joined in and swayed along as I pined for my luggage.

Was it an ominous sign that George Michael bade me farewell as I left the shores of the United States and then again as I touched ground a half a world away?

Aaron went an arranged a pre-paid taxi and I, dragging my luggage behind me, met him outside. It was at this point that I came to understand his descriptions of the Airport and where it was derived from.

In the blink of an eye, I stepped from an airport under eternal construction into a scene from a post-apocalyptic flick about the endurance of the human spirit or something. I stumbled out the doors and into a mass of people, half-my sized, some of whom waited for people coming out, some of whom were wrapped in blankets sitting about and staring and some of whom shoved small, cupped hands into the paths of the people coming out.

We made our way through the initial mass of people and I waited next to a pillar as Aaron to find our cab. All around, there were people yelling for cabs, cabbies ignoring them and chatting, dogs dodging traffic, people huddled around piles of burning trash, make-shift tents and pant-less kids. It became quickly apparent to me that it was not a “foggy” night in Delhi, it was smoke and it was everywhere and it was thick.

Aaron was insistent, from the moment we landed that we take an Ambassador taxi into Delhi, after taking one look I saw why(see picture). Its like riding in a stylish tinfoil box. After some guy took our pre-paid cab, we followed in-kind and took the next guys. Only, unlike us, the guy we shafted ran behind the taxi cursing the driver as Aaron urgerd the drive to “go” in Hindi.

It only took the cabbie taking a turn onto the main road for our stylish tin box to turn into a rolling death machine. As Bhangra Hindi pop blared over the radio, our cabbie flew in and out of traffic…sometimes on the proper side of the road, sometimes not, dodging TaTa trucks as if they (all 3 tons of them) posed no threat to our mortal selves. As he flew the wrong way around a blind curve, he looked down to adjust his speaker to make sure we could hear the music. Clutching the seat and grinning and watching my short life pass before my eyes, I knew this was just the first of many Delhi traffic experiences…

I took a deep breath and tried to watch the scenery as it blew by in a smoky haze...