The USA Series Part 2: Gluttony, "purely non-vegetarian" style!

On the first weekend in February, a feeble sun made a futile attempt of warming Arlington. Winter still ruled over the commonwealth of Virginia. The air was still frigid. The biting cold singed exposed earlobes and finger tips. With nothing to do at home and nowhere to go that Sunday, comfortably warm in my oversized black jacket and skull cap, I took a metro ride to the Woodley Park Zoo. It was not the most exciting place to be at. Like all zoos, this one was also depressing. The clichéd gilded cage couldn't do much to placate the poor creatures living within them, or behind glass panels in air-conditioned rooms! That is not where they belonged.

I made a hasty exit, ate a sandwich at a deli, and walked back to Adams Morgan metro station, after spending some time listening to a street guitarist called Carlos, playing Santana-like lead on his electric guitar. For a dollar, he played what he called his best piece and also showed me the CD jacket of his latest release, which he said I could pick up from a certain store in the area. After exchanging a few pleasantries, I went down the long escalator into Adams Morgan metro station, which was not as deep down as Rosslyn's escalator, I think.

Carlos, a brilliant street guitarist outside Adams Morgan metro station

At Crystal City's basement shopping center, just above the metro station, some uninspiring music played in the corridors; not the usual "With or without you" by U2 that usually welcomed me on weekday evenings. My mind was not so much on the music as it was on dinner plans. There was nothing at home in the refrigerator, except for a Budweiser six-pack. With just a sandwich in my belly and all that walking around, I was hungry by the time I got back to Crystal City. Surprisingly, the Sbarro outlet was closed, so I could not pick up my usual beef stroganoff sandwich from there. The Sushi store was open, but I did not feel up to it. The salad take-out store next to CVS Pharmacy had run out of most of its servings. I was not in a mood to cook that evening, so the only option left was to order a pizza or a chicken teriyaki rice from the Asian restaurant.

The lobby of the Marriott next to my apartment building had its usual throng of pretty teenagers and their boyfriends at the Starbucks outlet. In comparison, the lobby of Oakwood, my apartment building, looked deserted. However, as I walked into the lobby, I saw a row of large suitcases neatly lined up against the lobby wall. The usually animated, Morgan-Freeman-esque receptionist was even more animated that evening, flailing his arms and shouting out orders to his much younger subordinates. As I reached the elevators, I saw faces I recognized, and these faces were not those of Mr. Freeman's duplicate or his subordinates. These were faces from back home, only that they were much more haggard and pale than I remembered them from home town. And those faces caught sight of me and brightened, as if they had seen a messiah.

The two ladies were my colleagues from the Human Resources team. Back home in the Chennai office, my team and theirs shared the same floor space and, much to the chagrin of both teams, the same pantry and lunch table. But here, on foreign soil, in an alien place - alien as yet at least for them - there was no animosity. We shook hands and talked about the weather and their flight across so many continents.

"Oh it was horrible!" one of them exclaimed, pushing back the loose strands of hair from her forehead. Indeed, she did look like she took a state-transport bus from Chennai to Washington DC. Wasn't all operational travel at the World Bank supposed to be Business class? My own Lufthansa experience was something I was going to talk about forever, making it a fable for my daughter and perhaps her children and grandchildren.

"Yes it was business class," the other lady volunteered this time as the first one relapsed into the state of asthmatic breathing that she was in when I saw her only a minute ago.

"But what, pah! 15 hours from Doha! And the food was horrible!"

Now that got me a little worried because I was planning to book my wife's ticket on Qatar Airways, because that was the cheapest option that season. She had already sent her passport to the Consulate in Chennai for her visa. Surely there must have been a mistake. From what I'd read about Qatar Airways on Airliners.net and elsewhere, it seemed to be a very good airline. Nevertheless, I asked them if I could be of any help.

"I've got phone numbers of restaurants that could bring you some food," I said and gave them those numbers. I wished them a 'Welcome to the States' as if I'd been living there since I was born. Then I retired to my apartment, filled the bathtub with soap suds, grabbed two Budweisers, topped up a bowl with nachos, and threw myself into the tub, still wondering what I could order for the night. I'd forgotten to withdraw cash from the ATM, so I was left with only 10 dollars in my wallet. The bathroom door I left open, so that some of the classic rock from Pandora.com could drift into the bathroom. I hardly watched TV. There was no cable, only free channels, which telecast rubbish like "Keeping up with the Kardashians" and "Love Bus". Bah!

The kitchen of my apartment

The loud ding-dong of the doorbell startled me. Nobody in the US came to your doorstep uninvited, so I guessed it must have been the newly arrived guests from World Bank Chennai. I quickly toweled myself and got into a t-shirt and shorts, and answered the door after the bell rang once again. Sure enough, the two ladies, still haggard, stood with a large pizza in their hands. Yes, their hands, for they were carrying it between them as if they were carrying a piece of furniture.

"Hi, we are so sorry to disturb you, but would you like to have a pizza?"

A pizza! Sure, I had no idea what to do for dinner anyway. But why were they ordering pizza for me? It should have been the other way round.

"You eat non-veg, by the way?"

"Sure I do, but why did you take the trouble..."

"Oh you know, we ordered a large pizza and THIS came for us."

The held out the pizza box and I read the label on it. Pepperoni with extra pepperoni toppings, it said, next to the red-dot sign indicating that this was a meat-pizza. And these ladies were, as they like to call themselves in India, pure vegetarians!

"Well, I'd love to have this pizza," I said, already salivating. "But why did you order a non-veg pizza?"

"Oh we ordered pepper ronny! The pizza says pepper ronny but it is full of meat! We don't see any pepper or capsicum on it. Just meat!"

As much as I wanted to laugh out, I didn't, out of pity for these two ladies.

"You surely don't mind us giving you this, do you?"

Why would I! One large pepperoni pizza would last me for two good days. I accepted it, even offered to pay for it, but they vehemently declined the offer. I even volunteered to give them some of the potato-peas curry I'd made earlier, but they said they had brought their rice, sambar powder, and other condiments from home. They said that the sambar was already cooking on the stove.

I thanked them profusely for the pizza, they thanked me even more profusely for accepting the pizza, and I went to bed after a hearty meal and enough beer to go with it. For once, I thanked the Universe for "pure vegetarian" brethren!

The USA Series, Part 1: The Flight of Fancy to the Land of Dreams

"Isn't that a coyote on the runway?" said the black-suited, bespectacled, tall gentleman seated next to me, pointing a long index finger at the creature running along the edge of 07C/25C, Runway North, Frankfurt am Main (I noticed the markings). "He might just take off before we do...uh...you do speak English, don't you?"

I turned towards the gentleman and my foggy brain said: Smile! So, I smiled. Beamed at him, in fact. "Yes that does look like a coyote," I said. "And I've heard of flying foxes, but those creatures never looked like this!" With a guffaw and a warm handshake, the introductions were completed, and I turned back to the runway as our Boeing 747 lined up on it. A hazy view of the terminal building danced outside the window. An air hostess hurriedly picked up the empty wrappers of Macademia nuts from our trays, which we folded and put into a little container in the armrest. Within a minute, the Lufthansa Boeing 747 gunned down the runway and took to the skies, turning westwards towards the land of dreams that all of us desis at least fantasize about with a sigh.

The first leg of my flight had indeed gone by like a fantasy ride, although I would have liked to have taken off from Mumbai international instead of Chennai, but what the heck. I was flying to the US of A, to the most powerful capital city in the world. On a G4 (United Nations issue) visa. By Lufthansa. Business class. Yessir, operational travel at the Bank meant Business class tickets!

I began living the dream as soon as I walked into the Business class section. Seats ensconced in little cubicles, complete with an inbuilt massage thing and a 170-degree recline, which moved without affecting the neighbor's seat. A pillow and a wrapping sheet neatly kept under the seat. A pouch containing a pair of socks, eye-blinds, earplugs, and toiletries on the seat. Wine, champagne, and Macademia nuts served to welcome you to Business class. What more could I have asked for! Well, I was hoping to see the Hindukush ranges, the Iranian snow-capped peaks, and the Turkish Anatolian mountains from the aircraft but so stupid of me; it was still night in these parts. I had to contend with the endless servings of Baileys Irish Cream, hors d'oeuvres, and hot meals, and "Transsiberian" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", which lulled me to sleep.

A funny, unusual thing happened that early morning in Frankfurt. The fog clearance system or something at the airport failed, because of which our flight was diverted to Leipzig. Just as it touched down in Leipzig, the captain announced that the system in Frankfurt was operational again. So we turned around at the end of the runway and took to the dark skies again.

It was still dark when the aircraft landed in Frankfurt, but there was a feeble promise of daylight. Fog blanketed the airport and its surroundings making visibility zero. All I saw as the Airbus A340-600 touched down was a highway and an astonishingly sleek black truck roll down that fantastically paved road. The aircraft took 25 minutes to taxi to the terminal building, before a faint glimpse of the glass facade of the airport terminal appeared. Aerobridges, like legs of a bug, in the livery of the Royal Bank of Scotland, protruded from the terminal building. At a signal from the air hostess, First and Business class passengers exited first. I was the fourth or fifth passenger to exit the aircraft. At the mouth of the aerobridge stood three police officers in complete German police overalls. One of them was much shorter than the other two, shorter than me too, and had a similar complexion as mine.
 
"Excuse me please, your passport and boarding pass?"
I was taken aback. The white, German cops or even this chap did not stop the rest of the passengers, so why me? I handed him my passport and boarding pass, watched him as he studied it, saw his brow raise - I'm sure it was the G4 stamp in the passport - and then took back the passport and boarding pass from him, which he handed with a "Sorry, have a good day!" whisper. I did not accept his apology. Bloody bugger, desi-origin fella! Only me he had to stop and ask for credentials! Only I looked like a terror suspect simply because I was as brown-skinned as he was? As I walked down the aerobridge and reached the terminal building, I muttered to myself through grinding teeth: Bhainchod!

The rest of my five hours in transit were beautiful, although there was that 35 minute walk from Terminal C to Terminal A, including a sky train ride. The automatic sky train is a two- or three-cart vehicle mounted on top of the terminal buildings. You don't even realize when you walk into it that it is a train, for during that 35-minute walk, you enter and exit several automatically swiveling glass-doors, and use several walkalators as well.

I spend five wondrous hours in Lufthansa's business lounge at Frankfurt International airport, chatting with my wife online for an hour, gorging on the breakfast spread that was easily any gastronome's delight, and downing endless amounts of vodka and tonic water. All this for free, and "free" anything for us Indians is a Heaven-sent. My head buzzed as I floated towards the gate area to board the next aircraft for the second haul of my journey, with a stupid smile plastered on my face. I was seated third from the nose of the gleaming Boeing 747 under the first class section, with a glass of champagne already waiting for me.

As we flew out of Germany came the drinks again. I refused but the pretty, Oriental air hostess insisted that I sample the Riesling Kabinett Trocken or the Champagne Jacquart Brut Mosaique. Who could ever decline such a pretty request! Both the middle-aged gentleman next to me and I reached out for the champagne, and the air hostess brought more before the last sip was downed. Akshay Kumar's antics in "Singh is King" kept me in splits, just like my father-in-law's comment did, to our neighbour in Chennai the previous night.

"My son-in-law is going to Amerikya! The World Bank is calling him there!" he said, and I could not help laughing out. Had my manager heard this, he would have fallen out of his high-back chair, laughing.

The hors d'oeuvres followed; I chose Thai Salad with fried Breast of Quail and Tamarind Sauce and a Soup of Parmigiano Reggiano with toasted Croutons. The route map on the common screen in the Business class section showed that our aircraft was flying over some-town-upon-Tyne, while Katrina Kaif sashayed across the Australian outback in a song sequence. Little did I realize then that this song was going to play upon my mind, and on my favorites playlist, for a long time.

I really do not remember when the food plates and the champagne glass was cleared, for I passed out just as the aircraft flew towards the Atlantic. When I woke up, we were flying over Canada close to the US border. A white carpet spread out below, polka-dotted by patches of brown. There was a live recording of Queen's tribute to Freddie Mercury that played on one of the channels. Luciano Pavarotti did an Italian cover of "Too Much Love Will Kill You" while I lunched on Fried Filet of Salmon with Sauce Hollandaise, Almond Broccoli and Parsley Potatoes. I chose the white Reisling as accompaniment. Just when I thought my stomach would erupt, the same Oriental air hostess brought us the final round of food: an assortment of cheese and dessert. Now I had no idea about different types of cheese. The only kinds I had eaten until then were Britannia sandwich cheese slices, Amul cheese spread, and Kraft cheese triangular cubes that my father brought from his various overseas trips. And none of these were present in the assortment: Bleu d’Auvergne, Le Coutances, Banon Goat Cheese wrapped in Chestnut Leaf, Reblochon, Rahmberg Cheese, a savory Cream Cheese, Grapes, Gouda, and toasted Pecan Nuts and Fig Mustard Sauce. Gouda? Did it have anything to do with the Gowda dynasty of Karnataka? You never know with these rich families in India. They could own anything anywhere and give it their name!

Ignoring the cheese, I settled for a dessert, a chocolate cake with cherry brandy Parfait and aged balsamic vinegar. It tasted like nothing I had had ever before. The end of my nonstop eating ever since I was airborne in Chennai was not the most fascinating, but every thing else until then definitely was. By the time I cleaned up that plate of dessert, the 747 began its descent into Dulles International Airport, Washington D.C.

After touchdown, as the aircraft taxied towards the terminal, I saw a British Airways Boeing land behind us on the runway. Again, the gentleman next to me broke the silence:
"So, your journey ends in DC or you are going elsewhere?"
Turned out that both of us were stopping in DC.
"Great! I've just returned home," he said. "Always feels great to be back home!"
"I've just left home behind," I said. "In India."
"I hope DC proves to be worth leaving home behind. You'll be studying at U of George Washington?"
Again, I let that impish smile return to my face. With slant eyes, I looked up at the suit-donned gentleman and said:
"No, I work for the World Bank. I'm going to work on a project over here for a few months." While his jaw remained dropped, I reached out to my wallet, pulled out my visiting card, and handed it over to him.
"It has my India office numbers listed, but there's my email address. Do write to me if you feel like it."

I opened the overhead storage rack, pulled out my backpack, and walked towards the exit, leaving the stupefied gentleman still holding my visiting card with both hands, reading my credentials on it: Knowledge Management Analyst, The World Bank.

The Song of the Lapwing

The twittering of the lapwing first caught my attention in the uncanniest of places. I had definitely heard its twittering before, but at places where one would quite naturally expect to hear such melodies. At that particular moment, however, on that brooding evening inside a meeting room, when I heard this bird sing, I suddenly began to perceive a certain correlation that the song had with something in my life. Something that I could not instantly put a finger on. It felt as if this melody was not just a common birdsong, which usually played out as the sun completed its task for the day and made way for night. It fel more like a clarion call of some sort. As if it were a reminder that there was something else that had to be done, to be accomplished. It was like Pavlov's theory of conditioning; after repetitions of an exercise of ringing a bell and feeding a dog after each ring, when the bell rang again, the dog would begin to salivate thinking food was on its way.

Then, I was working for a mid-sized, over-ambitious e-learning organization. I was seated in a meeting room by the glass window that overlooked the Western Express highway. I had been sitting there for quite sometime that evening, in silence, with the muffled drone of the air-conditioner and the constant grumble of highway traffic, which adamantly percolated through the tightly shut glass panes and concrete walls. Outside, across the highway, sprawled a patch of green foliage that had managed to trick a flock of birds into believing that this was a forested haven in the concrete jungle. While the sounds of air draft and highway-traffic filled up the silence of the meeting room, and as the anxiety and stuffiness of the room began to smother, the song of the lapwing wafted into my ears and lodged itself in my head.

Didhedoit?
Didhedoit?

That was what it seemed to ask: Did he do it? That is what it always sounds like, the constant grumble of an old friend who always manages to keep me company whenever I, or my mind, travel. Then, I began recollecting the numerous places, and in some cases numerous times,  that I had heard the lapwing's song. Kanha's meadows. Fields and noontime beaches in Goa. The paddy fields in front of our ancestral home in Kerala. Outside decrepit railway stations and at interstate trains' signal halts in the hinterland. The vast open mangroves behind my housing colony in remotest Virar, where the last local train went to roost every night, before it set out to do its duties once again early next morning. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, in a spaced-out state of mind, I made the correlation between the song of the lapwing and the need to travel. Physical or metaphorical, whatever the trip was, the lapwing's song became a reminder, an alarm call, that it was time for me to travel.

Then, in that meeting room, this song was a welcome respite from the thick fog of silence that smothered the room. The people all around me, team mates on a certain project, sat without uttering a word. Feet shuffled. Chairs screeched, making nervous eyes and heads swivel in the direction of the culprit. Once the silent admonishment was administered, all eyes flitted back towards the project manager, who sat perched on the back of his chair, his head hanging down as if he had kettle bells dangling from his nose. Opposite him, across the oval table around which we, the lesser mortals called content writers, huddled, sat his minion, a senior instructional designer, with her head also hanging down, index fingers of both hands twirling around the edge of her dupatta. She was more like a personal assistant and accomplice to the project manager, and both of them equally obnoxious, overwhelmingly boring, and completely clueless about how to conduct a simple, daily status meeting.

Nerves were on edge. I even noticed goosebumps on the hands of a senior writer. The suspense in that meeting room, concerning a certain announcement that the project manager should have made 2 hours ago, bogged down the already weary team of writers. The sense of uncertainty was murderous. A gloomy future, like the exploding dusk outside, was what the team's future looked like. Or was made out to be. Every evening.

Probably in my mind alone, there were only two things playing: the local-train time-table, where as the stifling minutes passed by, I lamented the departure of each train; 6.17 pm...gone; 6.29 pm...gone; 6.51 next, but that too mostly gone; and so on. That, and the distant, comforting, and at times - especially now as each dreary minute ticked away - annoying, song of the lapwing.

The project manager peered from under his brow and let his gaze skim across each one of us. He had a grin plastered on his face, an idiotic grin that every body in the team hated him for. That was just one of the things, the least significant thing, that he was despised for.
Then, he let out a long, noisy sigh. We heard a muffled sniff follow immediately and all eyes turned in that direction. It was his minion who sat across him, perched on a book cupboard, weeping and daubing her nose and eyes with a handkerchief.

"Well..." he, the despicable project manager, finally said. A word was finally uttered, I thought, but then I think I thought too soon. The grin, which was supposed to be a wan smile, returned to the manager's face.

"What do I say...Really..." He called out to his minion. "You...want to say something?"

No she did not. Instead, her muffled sob changed to a whine, a low-pitched, excruciatingly painful sound like chalk skidding on the blackboard. One would weep like that if there were a death in the family, or if the person failed a university exam, or lost a limb in an accident.

"What will she say!" he answered for her, and again, fretful eyes turned back from minion to Master. "What do you guys do over here....really, I...I don't know how to...You know, you know, you have any idea what the client said..." he continued, his hands flailing like the Italian What-the-fuck gesture. Gradually, after two hours of being held hostage in a meeting room, it finally dawned upon us - after dusk - that the client reported a few bugs in the courseware that we uploaded. That was it. That was what all there was to this melodrama.

For two or three months, this had been the story of our lives. Every evening when it was time to head home, Master and minion called for a meeting and did this. For a particular meeting, the HR manager was asked to join and play ring master while these two characters doubled up as buffoons. That circus began at 5 pm and went on till 11 that night. That was supposed to be a taking-stock and pepping-up meeting. What it did instead was flatten us to the ground.

Maybe the lapwing's call on that particular evening was a beckoning for all of us to break out of the corporate shackles and head out, quite literally, to the great outdoors. Which we did, a few weeks later when we could not endure any more of those histrionics. That call culminated into the first bike trip of the trippy tipplers to a beach town called Kashid. More about that later.