The Two-Faced Whore that is Mumbai

For the last week I've been writing an e-learning version for CDM. A potential new product for GV.
Interesting. Does take quite a lot of time though.

Friday I went to the Prince of Persia. Okay, as films go, cute cast. Stood up during the anthem and had a Kulfi icecream.

Saturday started of slowly. Went for breakfast at Greens (local veg restaurant) with Krish and Som. Had a Dosa Massala with some Sweet Lassi. Then went for a Doppio Espresso in Inorbit.

Then I went home and hung out a bit.

At six thirty I was picked up by a grey Toyota, licence plate MH 04 DE 7866.
I was taken to the Churchgate area, close to the Queens Necklace.
I was dropped off at a hotel.
then I was taken to a wine tasting in an exclusive hotel. The Oberoi. In this hotel, tens of people were killed in the attacks a few years ago. The only thing to remember them by is a red piano. symbolic of the shed blood of innocents.


The Wine Tasting was pretty cool. First time I've done this. Started of with three whites, then three reds. The third white tasted vaguely like Marmelate & Marmite. It was a hate-it-or-love-it kinda wine. I liked.

The three white ones. The middle one really nice & soft, the right one a hate-it-or-love-it.

Then I had a 4-course dinner. With, amongst others, Wild Boar. De Lish.
Very decadent.

Then went to a private club and was able to do some dancing for the first time in weeks. Made a vague attempt at showing Tectonic & jumpstyle. My tectonic was slightly more popular with the wider public. for obvious reasons.

Then I was driven back. Was home by 3 something.

There are advantages of meeting Brazilian ambassadors at meetings of Dutch & Flemish people.

The Meat Issue

An enormous amount of Indians is vegetarian. To this extent that the "non-veg" food on the menu is usually outnumbered two to one by the "veg" food.
Almost everything nourishing you buy in a shop has either a green dot or a red dot on it.
Green for Veg, Red for Non-Veg.

Non-Veg, however, has a slightly different interpretation than in Europe.

a) it's defined by the "not being vegetarian"; basically making it the exception, not the rule.
b) Despite what you might believe, non-veg does not include all meat. It only includes chicken and mutton. Cows are holy and Pigs dirty.
c) Despite what you might believe, non-veg often includes "eggs" as well. Even though I haven't met a single vegan yet; most of the vegetarians seem to think it normal that eggs are part of the "meat" group. I had a vegetarian omelet the other day. it did not contain eggs.
d) Most of them, however, are what is called "eggatarians" here. As in, they are willing to make an exception for most meals which have eggs in them. For example muffins.

In Europe, we generally pride ourselves in removing all the bones, sinnews and what not from the meat before plunging it into some stew. Sure, we like some bone on our T-Bone Steak, or on our Kotelet or Chicken Leg. But in a Stew, we prefer our meat chew-ready. Also, preferably, we prefer our meat to not resemble the animal it came from. No spines or cute little ribs for us, if we can help it.

Not so in India.
This is probably partially explained by the fact that the use of forks and knives (which aren't really known for cooperating well with bones and such) is quite limited here. People usually eat with their hands and, perhaps, a spoon.
It's probably also explained by the fact that, unlike us "fancy Europeans", people here actually realize where meat comes from. They know it doesn't grow on trees or straight in the supermarket. It comes from slaughtered animals.

You haven't eaten chicken until you've ripped a spine apart in search of more flesh.
(after that, you probably won't have eaten chicken either, seeing that there is precious little meat to be found between two spinal bones...)

Monsoon

There are more clouds every day.

What used to be a pristine blue emptiness, is now an looming chaos of dark grey masses.

Douglas

I have carried around a towel the entire day. And I didn't get a single comment.

Life is a cruel mistress.

Op Zoek naar Bevestiging

Ik vroeg me trouwens af of er eigenlijk iemand dit blog leest. Buiten mezelf dan.

Niet dat ik vies ben van een beetje interne monoloog van tijd tot tijd. Maar toch.
Ik denk dat het af en toe verstandig is weg te blijven van een teveel aan egocentrisme.
Trop is teveel, zoals ze dat zo schoon kunnen zeggen.

(al valt er waarschijnlijk wel een thesis of twee te schrijven over die twee woorden. Betekenen ze daadwerkelijke exact hetzelfde in beide talen? ... Voedsel voor gedachte)

Another Ice Cream Story.

90 Mph on the back of a motorcycle. On a Mumbai highway - read : a lot of traffic that doesn't really seem to mind the traffic rules. So a lot of zigzagging & using the horn and narrowly avoiding riksha's. Wearing nothing but shorts and a tshirt.

twice.

my upper legs are burnt and so are my upper arms. wind and loose clothing can do that.


Riding next to a rik or another motorcycle and asking for directions at 30mph and up is also quite an experience.

Verjaardag

oh ja. Bart De Latte - aka mijn broer - verjaart vandaag.

Wens de jongen een gelukkige verjaardag, if you please.

Weekend ervaringen

Friday, I took a train (a real one this time. Second class. filled with the grey and blue (and, lets be fair, brown) masses of Mumbai) to Churchgate with my colleague Rashmi (see the bubblegumicecreampicture). The southern point of mumbai. the fancy part. the part that corresponds with the word Bombay in literature. You can almost imagine some Posh Redcoats signalling for a Riksha (an old fashioned one, pulled by some small turbaned sinewy Indian boy).

Bombay. Some Old station.

Met with some of her friends there. Don't ask me for their names. I can recall them vaguely, but wouldnt know how to write them down.
Walked around, saw a wedding, bought food from a guy on the street. It was nice and one of the many things I have done up till now that "people in foreign countries should never do". Add it to the ice cream list.
learned to count to ten in hindi.
eek, do, tien, djaar, paansh, tsjhee, saath, aath, naw, thus

Had dinner. Was then dropped off at the station where we took the train back to Goregoan (closest train station to home). Or at least, I did, for they had to get off earlier.

On this train, luckily when the girls were still with me, I was stared at for, not kidding, at least half an hour by this small creepy guy with very light grey/blue eyes. Even the girls noticed and were disturbed. So no, I was not being my usual scared paranoid sense, for all those people who have this wild notion that I'm a scared little sh*t. They are obviously wrong; just look at my ever expanding ice cream list. One might even say exponentially expanding considering what else I've done.

So I stayed on the train, got off at Goregoan, took a riksha to Inorbit Mall (aka; my crib), gave the guy a 2 rupi tip, walked home.
Was home around 1 AM or something.

Today I took a rik to Malad station (about as close as Goregoan), met up with Rashmi and one of her friends. took a train to another station (don't remember the name). took a rik to the apartment of a Friend of Rashmi's.

We drank "coffee" (I'll have to find a good word for indian "coffee". it's exactly like calling Heineken beer. exactly like that). hung out a bit. then went to restaurant.

My First Decent Indian Beer. About the strongest they've got.

Not That Strong in fact.

then went back to the guy's place. they heard I brought cards.
I decided to teach them Wiezen. They were okay at it. And remarkably quick on the uptake. turns out they have a similar game. At first they were really conservative, never took any real risks. After a while one of them bid till 13. I guess you could say they grew out of it.

after that we took a ferry to an island. to The Golden Pagoda (http://www.globalpagoda.org/).

I stick to europe and still prefer a good old cathedral any day. one that is not being built with concrete and red and golden paint. one that doesn't force you to go through three security checks and asks your belgian address and number and passport info.

The Golden Pagoda. Taken From the Boat

then ferry back, then rik to trainstation. then train to Malad with the girls.

I got out, they stayed on. I took a rik home, had two more coffee in a cafe coffee day (a coffee chain here), then went home and took a Needed Shower (rik + train + ferry = GERMS!)

Now. the last paragraph can actually be added to the Ice cream list. Let me elaborate.
On the train I was complaining/talking about Indians and India (see other post) to my colleague and her friend. Guy next to us was sorta listening to our conversation. nothing new there, people do that here (see other post).
In Malad, I got off. Guy did too. I went to front of station, guy did too. I was looking for a rik, guy was too. When I say "too", I mean simultaneously or even before me, by the way. It's not like he was following or copying me or something.

Waiting for a rik, he addressed me. we started talking. smoked a cigarette together, fretted about waiting so long for a rik. found out he had to go in the same direction, so I suggested we share a rik (seeing that we had both been waiting for a rik for 20 minutes, and we figured it might be better if we shared one, if we finally would be able to catch one, in the end we were assisted by a cop).
we take rik, head towards inorbit. We decide that we might take a cup of coffee before going home. I have a double espresso, he has an ice tea. We have another cigarette outside, he walks me to my apartment and that was it.

Admit it. An Ice cream list story.

Am having lunch with Rashmi and friend tomorrow. Her friend is picking me up with his motorbike. Another Ice Cream?

Fun Facts

I have met people who have never heard of Quentin Tarantino

I have met people who have never heard of Sin City / Pulp Fiction / Kill Bill.

I have met people who have never heard of Queen (despite Freddy Mercury Actually being from India)

I am slightly baffled.

Fun Fact

Indian people stare.

België en het Clean Development Mechanism

België is een Annex1 land. Dit betekent dat het beloofd heeft onder het Kyoto protocol zijn broeikasgasuitstoot te verminderen.

Broeikasgasuitstoot wordt meestal gemeten in CO2 e : Carbondioxide equivalent. Dit betekent dat alles gemeten wordt in "ton CO2". Zo is 1 ton CH4 (methaan) uitstoot gelijk aan 21 ton CO2e. 1 ton SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride) daarentegen, is al 23900 ton CO2e.

Binnen het protocol kan/moet men de uitstoot van deze gassen verminderen. Dit kan door technologische verbeteringen op eigen bodem, maar ook door a) emissie handel met andere Annex1 landen, b) investeren in broeikasgasuitstootverminderende technologische verbeteringen in andere Annex1 landen of c) investeren in broeikasgasuitstootverminderende technologische verbeteringen in niet-Annex1 landen. Deze laatste drie opties lijken nogal "gemakkelijk", om niet te zeggen hypocriet of egoistisch, maar zijn eigenlijk perfect verdedigbaar. Dit zal ik echter op een andere keer doen om niet te veel lezers te doen afhaken.

Optie a wordt, gemakkelijkheidshalve, ET genoemd, emission trading.

Optie b JI, joint implementation.

En ten slotte optie c, CDM, Clean Development Mechanism.

België investeert, oa, in 15 CDM projecten. Of beter. Er zijn in België 6 instanties die investeren in CDM (die dus investeren in technologische verbeteringen in niet-annex1 landen die daar CO2 equivalent): DG Environment, Biotec International, Electrabel, Fortis, Holcim en, last and rather least, het Vlaams Gewest.

De "Gast Landen" voor deze projecten zijn : Bolivië, China, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Maleisië, Peru en Uzbekistan.

In hun 1ste periode (gemiddeld een 10tal jaar lang) zullen deze 15 projecten tesamen (bedrijven in) België 77195 kt CO2e "opleveren". oftewel 77 195 000 000 kilo CO2e.

Gsm

Zoals wel vaker voorkomt bij buitenlanders in India heb ik problemen met mijn gsm. Of beter gezegd, de autoriteiten hebben problemen met mij.

Ik kan immers blijkbaar niet de noodzakelijke inwonerskaarten voorleggen (duh) en dus kan ik geen gsm nummer bekomen. En het bedrijf blijkbaar ook niet...

zit dus nu weer (hopelijk tijdelijk) zonder gsm.

mensen die me willen bereiken doen dit dus op het aloude nummer...

The Weekend

This explains a few things.

Friday
Meeting with the Dutch speaking community of Mumbai.
Highlights

1. Spent most of my evening talking French and English due to the presence of a Brazilian ambassador (who had spent a couple of years in Brussels and Den Hague, and felt akin to us dutchies)
2. During the introductions I ask a guy called Filip Haentjes where he was from. Oost Vlaanderen, he said. Whereabouts, I asked. Currently living in Gent, he said. Where before?, I asked. Aalst, he said. Aha, what highschool did you go to?, I ask, a bit surprised by now. St-Jozefscollege, ‘t groot college, he says.
3. Got 3 cell numbers, one amongst which from the Brazilian guy, for some reason. Might hang out with them next weekend.
4. Drank 4 double old monks (Indian Rum), and 4 or 5 Kingfishers (Indian beer, similar to Heineken…)

Saturday

No Highlights.

Saw Men Who Stare at Goats.

Went window shopping with Som.

Getting more and more used to both weather and food.

Sunday

Highlights.

1. Saw my first two cats
2. Saw my first two cows
3. Went to a wedding reception, left after 15 minutes before any partying really got going.
4. Took a train. First class.

Indians apparently don't always know what's good for them

The Train. Som. Krish

The train (open on both ends)(whilest driving)

Went to see a cricket match in The Queens Necklace, one of the most expensive areas of Mumbai. Basically the Old town. Lots of art deco houses, I was told.

The Queen's Necklace

Som. Beer. Cricket. Beer. Krish

Small world

You come to Mumbai. You go to a "meeting of Dutch speaking people". You meet someone who went to the same high school as you did.

coincidence, probably. Scary? a bit.

Advies in de wind & Kleurenschema's

Daarstraks een IJsje met een Meisje gegeten.

ik sla duidelijk alle advies van mijn moeder in de wind.

Ter mijner verdediging: het was een roos (bubblegum) ijsje, volledig artificieel. En het meisje was mijn collega.





Over roos gesproken. Ik gebruik een type shampoo met "oil" in. Om zo'n lekker gezonde indische glans te krijgen.

Nog eens over roos gesproken. Ik heb een aansteker gekocht. Een roze. Met een kitten erop. Ik ben er volledig verliefd op. Hij is fantastisch.

Anthem

Imagine.
You go into a mall. Decide to go and watch Iron Man II. Queue for ticket machine. Find out there are no more good seats. Get a cup of coffee. Buy The Jungle Books of Kipling in a bookshop. Queue for the ticket booth. Queue in the cinema. Get to your seat. Stand up while the Indian Anthem is playing. Sit down. Watch the commercials. Watch the film. Leave the movie theatre.

...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZi3fwP09zw



only in Mumbai

Mumbai Office & Weekend

Office Beverages

Painting in the Office

Saw stupid toyota-like car with DRIFT KING in shiny letters. Couldn't resist.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITLd2dtGTzY&a=k5VSZH4RpCU&playnext_from=ML

Off. Link Road
Krish & Som are the two guys on the left


Chicken Biryani Tastes Better Coca. But then again, doesn't everything?

Butter Chicken Massala

A meal of about 5 euro's : Butter Chicken Massala & a 7up

It's in the little things

A) you eat with your hands when possible. This is why, in restaurants, they give you a little finger bowl with a little piece of lemon in it.
B) "raw" vegetables are generally limited to a piece (sometimes cut into circles, sometimes not) of onion and some pickled lemons. I don't like lemons.
C) Bacardi breezer is a commonly accepted drink for adults.
D) Precious few have probably noticed this, but the handle on escalator generally goes a tiny bit faster than the steps. Well, in India, though even less have probably noticed this, it's the other way around.
E) Jobs are the yin and yang for Indians. The Alpha and Omega. You'll only have friends who have a career or are trying to get ones, and those friends won't have time for you, because they have a career or are trying to get one...

Désenchanté

I have unravelled the Address of my company:

Green Ventures Advisors Private Limited
608 / 609, 6th Floor, B-Wing, Knox Plaza, Mindspace Near Tangent, Opp. HSBC, Off Link Road, Malad (West),Mumbai- 400 064

should be read as :
The Company name is GVA private lt
It is located on the 6th floor, number 608 & 609 (the two offices have been combined into one), in the B-Wing of the building called Knox Plaza.
This building is located in the Mindspace area, and is right next to a building called Tangent.
This building is further located opposite a building owned by the company HSBC.
The street has no name, but is located off Link Road.
It is located in the western part of the Malad area of Mumbai.

Obvious isn't it?

Lost in Communication

We have a couple of premises here.

a) Indian Guy in The Simpsons speaks with a horrible accent
b) Cartoons are known to misrepresent (ethnic) minorities for the sake of humour
c) English is an official language in India. Might even be thé most common one. (They have alot of them)

This Might lead one to believe that the English of Indians might be slightly accented. A bit like the English of Americans or, God forbid, Australians.

It would, however, be more fitting to compare Indian English to Flemish Dutch. In all its lovely varieties. I, for one, sometimes have difficulties understanding some of our more... quixotic dialects. And I'm a native. I assume an inhabitant of the Netherlands would have more trouble understanding them.
Taking it one step further, I would imagine an American with a very good grasp of Dutch, almost, but not entirely a native speaker, would have to take pain to understand us.

And that's where the comparison comes in.

I'm the American in Flanders.
Less annoying and less loud, I hope - I admit the metaphor isn't entirely waterproof -, but still.

I Do Not Understand These People for about 50% of the time.
Which is not really handy when they're explaining things to you about your phone, your internet, your Certified Emission Reductions, your Clean Development Mechanism...

Sigh!
(even my expressions of despair seem like Indian words now...)

a) I managed to fix the whole not-being-chronological-ness of the blog. This, unfortunately, has turned a lot of what I said into pure nonsense... You will have to deal with this, 'cause I wont

b) the power problem of both my laptop and my cellphone was entirely my fault. I did not know you have to switch the powerplugs on before you can use them... silly me. The internet suffered a similar fate. Turns out you can actually Turn On the modem.... still don't have any connection in my room, but I do in the living room....

c) there was something else I needed to clarify. I forgot.

Pictures!

Content warning

all these pictures should be seen
whilest imaging stormy heat and humidity.

add a splash of car horns
and the incessant sound of barking dogs
for good measure

The Room in front of mine has embraced the true faith.

View from the appartment in the night time

View from the appartment in the day time

View on the appartment in day time

India. 05 05 10

16 30

5 5 10: it’s almost math.

third, or is it fourth?; full day.

Woke up at around 7.30 am. Took a shower (cold) (the phrase “a cold shower” can not be anything but good in this context). Had some cornflakes. Went for a walk. Silly me. Wanted to check when the mall opened, get a haircut & perhaps buy some cigarettes. The silly bit was that the second and third were entirely determined by the first. The mall opens around 10. I had to be at work at 9, so I just walked a bit more & went to work.

At work one of the airconditioningthingies is broken. Luckily only one of them, so the other 5 or so can still manage to keep the office reasonable cool. Cool for me, for now, that is. If I had encountered this temperature 4 days ago, I would have insisted to open a window for frags sake. Now, I’m just fine (not dandy though, unfortunately)(though I have seen this Awesome coat/vest in a shop that might take care of that problem) (I’ll take a picture of it later).
Had a meeting. There’s this Sri Lanka girl visiting the company about some project there, and I was asked to say a few words about my experience with waste management. Odd. Definitely odd. But interesting. Was asked to get more info on this. Prices, tonnage, energy production, feasibility in Asia...
Then went to lunch with boss, colleague & Sril Lanka. This Indian place (seems like a “duh” comment, but isn’t, seeing that this is actually only the second time I have Indian food). Apparently typical “wedding” food. A lot of small metal pots filled (by hand) with different types of food. Almost all of them “spicy” to some extent. Not necessarily “hot”, but with spices nonetheless. I have found I’m not too big on spices. Or on hot weather. Which is why i came to India, probably. After lunch I had a double espresso in the mall (the lunch was in the mall too) which I couldn’t pay myself, seeing that I only had a 1000 rs note. (50 rs = 1 euro...) and they couldn’t give back on that; silly people. Then I came back to my office and read a bit more on the wonderful world of CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and of LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestation).

I did write some stuff on the first two days, but due to a lack of laptop (I didn’t figure out how to use the plugs till yesterday... apparently you can switch them on and off... silly Indians) (silly me), and a lack of internet once it did work, I haven’t posted them yet. Will do so tomorrow or something (with the handy use of a usb stick)

The coffee in the office is no coffee by the way. Imagine a caffée froid frappe, with added cream and sugar and heated up. If you get there, you’re close.


Love and kisses from Gandhi land,

Tomas.

PS: I’ve already made a few faux-pas here!
A) smoking in a no smoking area (outside! On a parking lot!?).
B) having a beard and unruly hair makes me look like a terrorist by the way. They didn’t want to let me in the apartment yesterday evening. So I shaved yesterday evening and will get haircut in an hour or two...
C) I was talking to Sri Lanka girl, we were joking about the loud whistle of some security guards we passed. And I was making jokes like “haha, my whistle is louder than your voice” etc etc. Then, to sorta round the topic off, I mentioned “his penis is probably really small”. Which was the next logical step for me. But she seemed relatively shocked by this... which was weird.

16 48

Terror Strikes

4.40 pm now. When does “evening” start? I really need to get a convertor/adaptor. Laptop’s almost empty. Don’t want not being able to type & do stuff.

2nd of may 3.44 pm

Did put my alarm clock.

Ignored it.

Called Som around 12.

Gave me directions to meet him at the nearest mall at 1.30ish.

I did.People kept giving me looks. Asked Som about it.

Said it was either because I was so obviously waiting for someone (unusual in India?) or because of my hat.

Made me stand out, apparently. Decided to keep it nonetheless.

Bought groceries, oddly enough. Cornflakes (muesli like with added nuts), skimmed milk (aimed at losing weight, apparently), two “butter milks” (advised by Som, supposedly good against the heat), and a snickers.

Need to get money soon. Still have enough, I suppose, but didn’t really count on going grocery shopping on the first day.

Wore sandals and shorts today; seen Som wear them yesterday.

Stifling heat.

Didn’t find an adaptor for my cell & laptop though. Despite checking over 3 shops.

Thousands of uniformed guys, none of them able to give me useful advice. L

laptop & cell will die soon I suppose. Hope not before tomorrow, on my first day at the office.

The shop smelled like the grains I used to feed the chickens with. Oddness.

Security everywhere, I was frisked a number of times. Terrorist scare, it seems.

Stole toilet paper from the adjacent room. Which will be occupied soon, Som claimed.

Had a chat about religion and stuff. Som is a Brahman, and a firm believer in Shiva.

Saw it as odd that I was an atheist. Seemed slightly skeptical about it.

Will meet him later today, it seems. Will get a new cell phone/tariff tomorrow. I hope.

A couple of hours to kill. Feel like killing them on my laptop. But am afraid to kill the battery simultaneously. Friendly fire, so to speak.

2nd of May / 2.43 AM

The heat is stifling.

It’s difficult to move; breathe; think.
Thank god for air conditioning.

Never thought I’d believe that statement as much as I do now. Well, perhaps not the God bit. But the happiness when thinking about non-heat, about only slight humidity. Bliss.

Som picked me up. This other guy did too. It was the other one who held the paper with my name written on it in clumsy letters. It was the other one that took my baggage when I thought he wanted to give me hand. It was him that honked every 2 minutes of the half an hour ride. At the dogs, at the people, at the cars.


Cars… sounds insufficient to describe it though. An amalgam of tripods, bmw’s and scooters. Vehicles seems more appropriate. Driving through areas I would dub ‘slums’ but aren’t, apparently.

The air smells bad. Not rotten, but… bad. Goes wonderful with the heat though.

Som was kinda nice. Seemed vaguely amused by vandana being slightly annoyed at being woken up this morning. Can’t read him (yet) though.

“though” seems to be on the front of my mind. Might be a symptom of the mixed impressions I’ve been getting.

Will have to call Som or Vandana tomorrow “morning”. Asked when the people in India generally get up in the weekend. The elderly at 7 or 8, he said. Adolescents, having gone out till 3 in the morning – he made that sound as an outlandishly late hour – would sometimes stay in bed till 11 though. Shudder.

Don’t know if I’ll put my alarmclock tomorrow. Probably will.

Don’t want to make too bad an impression after all.Krish will arrive tomorrow. Or at least he should. ‘cept that there seem to be problems in Nepal. Didn’t enquire what kind of problems.Slept a couple of hours on the plane. So not tired.

Slight head ache already forming though.Reminds me of Som’s comment about how hot it is these days.

That even he thinks so.

38 degrees.

He said.

Shudder (bis)

Nighty night.

Tomas.

What should have been my first India Blog Post

for those who get confused really easily : This post should appear BEFORE the other India post. It is, in fact, the very first of my Indian Blogging

Due to lack of laptop & internet, however, this was not to be. I have now solved it through the cunning use of a usb-stick...



½ Mei : Rond Middernacht.
Brussel – London – Mumbai.
+1 – 1 -5.5 . of zo iets.
’t Is niet simpel, zo verticale lijnen oversteken. Of maak daar maar gewoon “lijnen” van. Niet enkel grenzen; noordte en zuidte graad. Als die woorden bestaan. Mijn taalgevoel – God hebbe zijn ziel – is ergens anders nu. Ergens anders.
De man voor mij – kan het anders? – leunt graag achteruit. Nu ja, wat kan je er aan doen? Het is zijn recht, zo niet zijn goed. Toy Story 1 & 2 zullen mogelijk vanaf nu voor mij de geur van Indiareizen dragen. Mogelijk ook niet. Zo’n indruk hebben ze tenslotte niet gemaakt.
De jongedame naast me – leuk ding, zo op het eerste en laatste gezicht – is van chinese herkomst. Maar dan echt; ik kan het zien aan het lettertype dat ze gebruikt in word. Let wel, het kan ook iets anders zijn. Maar mijn racistische, in-hokjes-denkende-geest heeft reeds zijn conclusie getrokken. Het verdict is onvermijdelijk onverbiddelijk. U is een Chinese, mevrouw. Ze drinkt thee zonder extra suiker & heeft een normale eetlust. Ze lijkt in het bezit te zijn van een job. Of een vreemde interesse in het turen over excell bestanden op een lange vlucht. Beiden zijn, me dunkt, mogelijk.
We landen over een 40 tal minuutjes. Id est : we zijn nu al aan het dalen. Zoetjes aan. De ceinturen, echter, die hoeven pas over een 40 tal minuutjes aan. Al is het beter om ze aan te houden gedurende de hele vlucht.
Het is echter druk vandaag in Mumbai. De luchtleiding – of hoe die mensen ook heten – heeft reeds laten weten dat er een vertraging zal zijn van vermoedelijk 10 tot 20 minuten. Jeetje. Mijn hart bloedt en mijn oren doen lichtjes pijn. 40 minuten, het zal zijn.