Maybe something good comes out everything in life.
………My one day trip to Calcutta was predictably hectic. I caught an early morning flight on Sunday morning (which meant that I barely slept Saturday night), worked all day, met up with friends in the evening and caught the early morning flight on Monday morning (which meant that I barely got any sleep on Sunday night- the second night in a row!) back to Bombay.
Calcutta airport, as always, was a mess. The check-in queue was longer than the one I stood in to see the Louvre. The difference being that the queue in the Louvre moved much faster (not counting the obvious difference that you don’t mind standing amongst the awe-inspiring pyramids in Louvre to see the greatest master-pieces of all time and nobody sane would want to stand in a never-ending line for security check-in at 5 am in the morning!).
So Calcutta airport was a mess. And I was grumpy (and sleepy). The previous evening, I had been unwillingly burdened with a briefcase-like-case made of cheap bright blue cloth and a cheap black handle. Whoever wants extra baggage at 5 am? And I didn’t carry only one small sling bag from Bombay just so I could get be bogged down with extra bags in Calcutta.
Speaking of carrying just one bag, I have become smart about this whole ‘no liquids, creams, etc in hand baggage on flights’. Imagine, if one’s trip is planned for just a couple of days, there is no need to carry anything larger than a small rucksack. And then to check in that small bag just because you have toothpaste and a deodorant and maybe some moisturising cream; and then wait for half-an-hour to collect the bag. It just makes the whole ‘carrying just a small rucksack so you can take it as hand baggage’ redundant. So this time I got smarter. I carried small SKUs (I mean packs- damn the tendency of using marketing lingo) of everything and I managed to take my sling bag as hand baggage. Just one bag!
So anyways, here I was happy that I just had hand-baggage and then I got the ugly blue case. Apparently the sari shops in Calcutta no longer give plastic packets (read ‘carry bag’ in Bengali) but ugly briefcase-like-cases. So there I was, carrying two very expensive saris is a cheap ugly blue case with a cheap black handle grumbling to myself. And to be honest, I was grumbling not so much for the extra effort needed for the added weight but the embarrassment of being seen with such an ugly bag.
To cut a really long story short I left the bag somewhere while standing in the long queue (in my defence I was sleepy). When I realised that the bag was missing (I might have been embarrassed carrying the bag but it did contain two rather expensive saris), I ran back along the queue that had formed behind for a few hundred metres.
And wonder of wonders, my bag was still lying untouched. How? In a country where even a 50p coin gets picked up within seconds did one big case not get stolen? (And there’s no way anyone could miss the bright blue colour.) It’s only when I saw the people around looking suspiciously at me and my bag did I realise the reason. They were scared. An unattended bag in today’s time could mean a bomb……
Like I said, maybe something good comes out of everything!
………My one day trip to Calcutta was predictably hectic. I caught an early morning flight on Sunday morning (which meant that I barely slept Saturday night), worked all day, met up with friends in the evening and caught the early morning flight on Monday morning (which meant that I barely got any sleep on Sunday night- the second night in a row!) back to Bombay.
Calcutta airport, as always, was a mess. The check-in queue was longer than the one I stood in to see the Louvre. The difference being that the queue in the Louvre moved much faster (not counting the obvious difference that you don’t mind standing amongst the awe-inspiring pyramids in Louvre to see the greatest master-pieces of all time and nobody sane would want to stand in a never-ending line for security check-in at 5 am in the morning!).
So Calcutta airport was a mess. And I was grumpy (and sleepy). The previous evening, I had been unwillingly burdened with a briefcase-like-case made of cheap bright blue cloth and a cheap black handle. Whoever wants extra baggage at 5 am? And I didn’t carry only one small sling bag from Bombay just so I could get be bogged down with extra bags in Calcutta.
Speaking of carrying just one bag, I have become smart about this whole ‘no liquids, creams, etc in hand baggage on flights’. Imagine, if one’s trip is planned for just a couple of days, there is no need to carry anything larger than a small rucksack. And then to check in that small bag just because you have toothpaste and a deodorant and maybe some moisturising cream; and then wait for half-an-hour to collect the bag. It just makes the whole ‘carrying just a small rucksack so you can take it as hand baggage’ redundant. So this time I got smarter. I carried small SKUs (I mean packs- damn the tendency of using marketing lingo) of everything and I managed to take my sling bag as hand baggage. Just one bag!
So anyways, here I was happy that I just had hand-baggage and then I got the ugly blue case. Apparently the sari shops in Calcutta no longer give plastic packets (read ‘carry bag’ in Bengali) but ugly briefcase-like-cases. So there I was, carrying two very expensive saris is a cheap ugly blue case with a cheap black handle grumbling to myself. And to be honest, I was grumbling not so much for the extra effort needed for the added weight but the embarrassment of being seen with such an ugly bag.
To cut a really long story short I left the bag somewhere while standing in the long queue (in my defence I was sleepy). When I realised that the bag was missing (I might have been embarrassed carrying the bag but it did contain two rather expensive saris), I ran back along the queue that had formed behind for a few hundred metres.
And wonder of wonders, my bag was still lying untouched. How? In a country where even a 50p coin gets picked up within seconds did one big case not get stolen? (And there’s no way anyone could miss the bright blue colour.) It’s only when I saw the people around looking suspiciously at me and my bag did I realise the reason. They were scared. An unattended bag in today’s time could mean a bomb……
Like I said, maybe something good comes out of everything!
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