I’m writing this post just ten minutes or so after leaving the Delhi airport because I don’t know when I will next have internet access to actually post this entry. This not only means my thoughts are fresh in my head, but that I am extremely jetlagged, groggy, and incoherent. But I’ll try to write them anyway.
So my flight left JFK at 5:00 P.M. on Thursday, arriving here in Delhi at 5:00 P.M. Friday. I took one of the new Air India 777 lines (I think that’s the number), flying the direct 13.5 hour route. While waiting for check-in at the airport, I saw none other than Alark Saxena, the TA for our Hindi class, standing in the same line: we were flight buddies! So we killed the hour-long delay by talking with each other. He’s a really funny/smart guy (he simultaneously called me a 5 year old and talked about the effects of tourism on ecosystems). Anyway, we were both traveling the direct Air India flight to Delhi.
Now, my past experiences with Air India have all been fairly memorable (note: memorable, not good) – I remember the service being terrible, the food even worse, and on one particularly lucky trip, watching the crew fumigate and spray disinfect the plane with all passengers on board. Yeah, so I’m a little biased against the entire airline as a whole. But this time, they had the cheapest flights and my dad assured me that their recent improvements were in effect. I had suggested a first class trip via Emirates or Qatar Airways, two lines that have been highly reviewed by family friends, but I guess saving money is good too.
Anyway, the flight was surprisingly good; not only does the new airline simply look cleaner and more professional, but the quality of the trip was greatly improved. Full entertainment stations (with TV shows, movies, songs, and games in English, German, French, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Malayalam), excellent service, and pretty delicious food redeemed Air India in my mind.
So here was my rough plan for how to pass time on the flight: given the time difference, my first priority was to minimize the effects of jetlag. So the strategy was sleep the first 2-3 hours of the flight, stay awake for the last 10/11. This plan was… largely unsuccessful, mostly because the old couple next to me kept wanting to get up for various reason (bathroom, coffee, soft drinks, napkins, stretching legs, etc.). So I spent the first few hours mostly just figuring out a comfortable position. By then, it was far too late to sleep, so I figured I’d start out be reviewing my Hindi. By this I mean watch 3 Bollywood movies back to back: Aladin, Wake Up Sid, and London Dreams. Here’s my Ebert & Roeper on all three:
Aladin: a really really cool concept; it sort of reworks the classic Aladdin story to focus on more the dark side of the magic, which was really interesting. Plus, the main villain and his gang were like… straight out of Tim Burton’s head or something. They were a gang of assassins dressed as circus performers – I thought it was brilliant. However, the movie itself was not great. None of the actors were particularly good (maybe Amitabh Bacchan did alright), none of the songs were really catchy, the story had a lot of holes, and the two halves of the story seem almost unconnected. Also, the main character, Aladin, gave the same exact speech (about how everyone he loved left him) about 4 times, if I remember it correctly. So this movie gets… probably 2.5-3 stars out of 5 in my books. This being said, I still liked the movie.
Wake Up Sid: a very standard coming-of-age story that focuses on the struggles of the son of a wealthy businessman to find his own identity and grow more responsible. He meets a girl who has just moved to Mumbai from Calcutta to pursue her own dreams and be more independent; while she teaches him something about maturity, he teaches her about enjoying life and being carefree. I’ll start with the positives, first of which is the really good soundtrack. “Iktaara” has been stuck in my head ever since I watched this movie. Also, the movie contains a lot of beautiful shots of the city itself. And while the plot is fairly generic, it doesn’t get boring. The one main negative I would have to cite would be the acting: Konkona is not a great actress, but when she’s acting alongside Ranbir she looks like the next Aishwarya. It’s actually kind of upsetting how bad Ranbir is in this movie (and how many shots of him in just his underwear they include). So… all in all, this one gets 3.5 stars from me.
London Dreams: the story of Arjun, a man with a lifelong passion for music and a hunger for fame. His family does not support his dream of becoming a pop star, so he runs away and moves to London, where he makes a sort of pick-up band that Bollywood/pop/rock sensation in a few months. However, everything changes when he decides to give his slacker/serial womanizer/vocally gifted friend a part in his band. Fans start to ignore Arjun almost entirely, cheering only for Manu, the friend, and being unsatisfied with performances featuring Arjun by himself. The story follows Arjun’s increasingly dangerous attempts to sabotage his once-dear friend to achieve his own fame. Pros: actually fairly decent acting by Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan, who play Arjun and Manu, respectively. Also, a clever little allegory to Arjuna’s focus and drive with the naming of Devgan’s character. Cons: bad music. And for me, this is kind of a dealbreaker. Also, the movie sets up a lot of conflicts that somehow magically resolve themselves. All in all, this one also hovers at around 2.5 stars.
…anyway. I also watched a Malayalam movie (Sulthan) for kicks. And then I watched music videos for “the top songs in America now.” Audience participation time! What songs does this make you think of? Hmm? Have a few in mind? I bet none of you thought of the TWILIGHT SOUNDTRACK. Yes, I watched half an hour of music videos from the Twilight movie.
In between some of the movies/Twilight, three meals came out (or more appropriately, two meals and a snack). Dinner was rice, malai kofta, and okra. The okra was a little iffy, but the rice and malai kofta were really good. The snack was two sandwiches (one was toast with butter and the other was cheese and tomato), while breakfast was uthappam, a cutlet, and some channa masala with roti. Now, I’ll take a break here to explain the title of this entry: I think my own impending old age never seemed clearer as it did when I was sipping my cup of tea, munching on a piece of toast/roti (depending on the meal), and watching Bollywood movies. Also, a little kid started talking to me and kept calling me uncle. It was awful. He thought I was over 25. In his defense, I think he was about 5, but still. It stung.
So that was the trip. And now I’m here in Delhi. I had actually forgotten how much I like the city. It’s got such a distinct character to it. There are parts with upscale apartments and abundant greenery, parts that are extremely destitute, and everything in between. Also, the way traffic works in India as a whole seems to be exaggerated here. In Trivandrum, people definitely use horns as a way of signaling any action, but I think it’s even more extreme here in Delhi. So that was fun. Also, my inn for the night is relatively sketchy. It’s in a back alley – oh dear, I just heard a girl screaming – that still somehow has a good amount of traffic. Bugs everywhere, which is kind of neat. They don’t look like that stinging/biting sort… just the scurrying kind. Also, I don’t really know how I’m going to meet up with program representatives tomorrow. They just kind of left me here. Soo... yeah. I’ve also got to go find a phone with which to call my parents and a friend we have in Jaipur. It’s going to be a fun evening! I’m going to try to go out for a little bit to see the city and all, but I might just fall asleep.
TWILIGHT.
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