The Lion, The Witch & The Rucksack
by Lynn Kilcline
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE - INDIRA GHANDI AND OUT
(Printable
version here)
When we arrived at the not very international
Indira Ghandi airport we intended to carry our two boxes of
doorknobs and bathroom fitting as hand luggage. Brian was
big and strong enough to make them look light and they weren’t
particularly large.
Things were going well until someone woke up the airport manager
and he decided to strut around taking an interest in all the
passengers. We were two of the ones he decided to take an
interest in, and after having checked in our luggage we were
asked what we had in the boxes.
We explained and the manager insisted they must go in the
hold. We did not dispute for one moment that he was right,
but we doubted that we would ever see them again if they travelled
that way. And if we did, they would not arrive in one piece.
No amount of objections would sway him and we had to join
a long queue to have the boxes
X-rayed. [They did not X-ray hand luggage so we could have
travelled with bomb components as long as we had them in a
handbag!]
We knew we would have some sport when the boxes went through
the scanner and indeed we did.
I stood behind the guard as the packages went through and
was able to watch the screen. Even though I knew their contents,
when the towel rail and fittings went through, they looked
for all the world like a machine gun.
It was great fun, especially when highly excited guards with
guns opened the boxes. They could see that we didn’t
have a machine gun stashed away, but I don’t think they
could identify much of what we did have in that particular
box, especially the toilet roll holder.
We’d had reasonable expectations of the
departure lounge after Chennai but Delhi airport was a real
dump. Dot had told us about the exorbitant prices for tea
and coffee and she had not been wrong. Thankfully our aircraft
was on time so we did not need to avail ourselves of the services.
It was illegal in theory to take Indian currency out of the
country and the three Indian banks in the departure lounge
gave such a poor rate of exchange that I would sooner have
flushed it down the toilet - if I could have found a toilet
that flushed.
We boarded the Emirates Airliner that was to take us to Dubai.
We were on the first leg of our journey home.
We had undertaken an adventure into the unknown, survived,
and had a tremendous time. We had learned a great deal about
India
and its people, and learned a great deal about ourselves.
I had learned that I could endure far more than I ever would
have though, and Brian learned that there was indeed life
after football.
There was a big world out there and we were going to be seeing
far more of it.
So watch out, world!
(Printable
version here)
"The Epilogue" Coming Soon...........
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