missing [thumb] category

I had a fairly uneventful trip to Kolkata today, except for a rather long wait at the e-visa station in Delhi where the young agent in the booth was at a loss on how to handle my missing thumb and kept returning to a senior agent for instructions! As they were speaking Hindi, I could not understand precisely the exchanges but he was told to enter “missing” and when this failed, “disabled” which worked out fine! The Indian Statistical Institute is locate quite a fair distance north from the centre of Kolkata and I searched in vain for a tea dealer in the immediate vicinity tonight. (Walking ten minutes in the street was most likely equivalent to smoking a full pack of cigarettes!!! I am glad I did not bring running gear as this would have been borderline suicidal… (On the flight back, the security agent was equally interested in my absent thumb, enquiring how I had lost it.)

The Terminal [#2]

For the third time within a year, I have been stuck in an airport hotel by missing a connection! This time on my way to Calgary, thanks to fog over Paris and Amsterdam. And to Air France refusing to switch me to an earlier flight from Paris. Not as strictly stuck as in Delhi, as I could get outside in a sort of no man’s land between runways and expressways, or even reach downtown Amsterdam by public transportation, but with 24 hours to wait for the next flight. The most frustrating part is missing the ice-climbing day I had organised in Banff…

the terminal

The Terminal is this (terrible) movie featuring Tom Hanks getting stuck in an airport international zone for an indefinite time (and based on a real story that saw Karimi Nasseri remain in Terminal 1 of Roissy, for 18 years, when being there for a few hours is already unbearable!). In a similar spirit, we got quarantined to the international zone in Delhi airport for 24 hours, thanks to a missed connection. And to an Air India representative who could not be bothered in finding another route, letting us out to visit the city, or even providing us access to our bags. So we ended up waiting in the airport short stay hotel, around the clock, with a bed, food and wifi. Not the end of the World, obviously! And with a rather unique view on the registration desks below.

Mother India

I saw several Amul posters during my trip to India and they all were related to women’s rights in the aftermath of the atrocious rape in Delhi, so I assumed this was a political party or organisation. However, when checking on the Web, I found that Amul is a dairy cooperative from the State of Gujarat, selling milk and milk products like ghee. It however runs ads involving their mascot, which can be quite political. Like the one above taken on my way to the airport in Varanasi. Or the one protesting the repression of the post-rape demonstrations in Delhi.