Trip preparation

4 July

I began my adventure with a 6pm flight from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. I’ve never had an evening flight before; it was nice to pack slow and relax waiting for my departure. Just the same, I knew it would be a long and tiring trip: SB to LA to Munich to Delhi and Delhi to Chandigarh via an air-conditioned bus.

Preparing for this trip was a nerve-racking nightmare. It began with the simple exercise sending an application and my passport to the Indian Consulate in San Francisco. My bliss soon faded as the Consulate claimed that they never received my mailing even though I had proof that my package was signed for. When I presented this proof, the Consulate changed their story and said they lost my passport. This was a month before I was scheduled to leave for India. Then began the arduous task of applying for a new passport. All the while, airline prices were going up but I couldn’t bring myself to purchase my ticket without a passport or visa. I received my new passport two weeks before my departure and sent it, plus the appropriate paperwork, to the Indian consulate in San Francisco. It wasn’t lost this time though the same person signed for it. The passport with visa arrived on the 2nd of July. I purchased my bahut menga (expensive) plane ticket late that night and flew out of Santa Barbara on the 4th July.

If that wasn’t enough, I had problems purchasing my ticket online with incorrect charges applied to my credit card. When I called my bank to clear it up, the bundar (monkey) of an associate I spoke to deleted the wrong charges and not the ones I asked him too. A second phone call and remaining on hold for an hour cleared that up.

On to better things, away from the smoke plumes, the ominous evening cloud of ash and debris, the power outages, and all those orange & magenta flames dancing up the hills and illuminating the sky. As the plane took off, I counted 8 smoke plumes. Wednesday evening I counted, from left to right, 53 fires independent of one another. The number increased when I glanced back over the area. Oddly, the air smelled like Delhi or Chandigarh.

Ode to the security guard who frisked me at LAX:
Thank you for touching my turban;
My spiritual crown, my gift from God;
Thank you for touching my turban without asking me.

For the record, he grabbed my turban from behind without warning and in essence, felt me up. Any other time and my elbow would have made contact with his solar plexus.