Airport Culture and Travel

So a lot has been going on in this past week for me. I am sitting at the domestic terminal of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (I still have to look up how to spell the first two words). In about an hour, I am guessing that it will make sense for me to stand in the crowds approaching my departure gate for my flight to Goa from Mumbai.

Earlier today, I had decided to go to the airport with plenty of time before my flight, as I did not know what congestion I might encounter, whether by traffic, security and identity checks, bag checks, and my general lack of knowledge about this particular terminal. Each time I have flown out of Mumbai, I have left from Terminal 2, the international terminal, though I did arrive back from Delhi to this terminal. If this is not yet confusing, then read on.

It might make sense to know I don't like large crowds.

I planned on using any extra time I had at the airport to try and finish my blog entry for this week, and so once I reached the waiting area, I gathered myself to find a quiet corner where I could pull out my computer and write, as I am doing now. However, I was decidedly self-conscious as I noticed NO ONE else was working on a computer, though many were starting at their phones with headphones on. So I opted for buying a snack in Café Coffee Day outlet (a chain of stores that I have often seen, but not frequented) and sit at an empty counter with a flight departure monitor just above me to the left.

The monitor is a sort of “life-line” in this terminal, which I understand to be a “silent airport”, meaning that there are no “boarding announcements”. I am not sure why this particular protocol exists here, but it does make me and everyone else pay attention to the “departure monitors” to see when we might be allowed to line up and eventually board our respective flights.

In watching the monitors, I also noticed that a particular flight’s status had been updated to an earlier time than its scheduled time of departure. Again, I am not sure of how this protocol might work, and I am just grateful to be here early, and it is not my flight that has the early departure update.

Past experience has taught me that getting into an airport requires either an electronic or hardcopy of one’s itinerary, if not a boarding pass, and a corresponding ID matching the name on the flight ticket. Another difference I discovered with domestic travel in India, was the ability to check in online many days in advance on one’s flight, and then have one’s boarding card printed out to be presented and “cleared” at various security points. This actually reminds me of the days when we had hardcopy tickets for our flights that were printed at a travel agency or airline office, and were part of the necessary travel documents needed before getting to the airport. I even have my return ticket boarding pass printed as I don’t know what kind of access I will have to ask someone to print it out for me in Goa. Once inside, I had imagined that I might try to check one piece of luggage and just carry-on my computer and essential electronics, as this is a relatively short, direct flight. However, I did pack with the consideration that I might opt to carry-on both my back-pack and my computer bag. Upon seeing the line at the “Bag Drop” for Indigo Air, on which I am flying, I opted to just do carry-on. The next step was to find my departure gate, which was going to be the "secret answer" to the security agent's question, before being allowed entry to the holding area for the appropriate bank of departure gates.

Crowds, congestion, culturally driven procedures and patience are a part of life for me in India. There are a few times where I have lost my patience in the last few months, but these instances are more pronounced in my memory for taking place in the studio, when working with dancers for whom my approach to dance, and learning movement has been a new experience. My ire did startle a different awareness in the dancers of my limits of patience, and I was very clear that my frustrated outbursts were based in witnessing all but one or two out of thirty dancers actually understanding the principles of conduct and attention that I lay out for my classes and rehearsals every day. Ironically, I had other staff thank me for showing that the dancers’ conduct and approaches does result in both praise and admonition. At least, this is my written description of a far more visceral reaction on both sides of the issue.

One area of public frustration for me is in what I am going to call “socio-cultural laundering of currency”. When I describe my experience to Indians, they claim it never happens to them, so I begin to imagine that I am singled out as a foreigner that will not question the refusal to accept a denomination of paper currency due to being marked with a pen, or to being torn in some manner. The refusal of the cashier to accept my bill, has resulted in me grudgingly hunting for a different bill to offer, and a disgruntled request that they point out exactly why the money is not acceptable. I then have to consider whether or not I prefer to just leave the register without my goods and let them restock the shelves and void the sales, or do I swallow my frustrations and “launder” their money for them. So where then do I spend the “marked” cash? The biggest irony, is that all my large denomination cash comes from ATMs, and the majority of my smaller change currency has been given to me by vendors I regularly frequent at this point in time. Recently, when a cashier handed me back a ₹50 (worth about US $0.75) note because of a torn crease, I recognized that I had received the note from the same shop earlier in the day. So after replacing the note with a higher denomination, I dropped the ₹50 note on the counter after receiving my change with the proclamation that if they would not take the money, it had to be worthless to me. In a flurry of quickly exchanged Hindi behind the counter with her supervisor, the cashier rapidly made change for the ₹50 note and handed me two ₹20’s and a ₹10 as though I had asked for change, and quietly said they would change the note with their bank. Sigh. Is it always belligerence that gets keeps commerce “honest”?

… I’m actually in the air on the short one hour flight to Goa, and I wanted to make note of yet another “throwback” experience for me today. The gates at the terminal are set up for us to board busses which then take us to respective planes parked in spaces around the active airfield. And, like in many tropical airports, we dismount the busses and walk up ramps or stairs to board our planes. Nothing particularly unusual there. Where I was reminded of my childhood days of flying, was seeing a plane landing on the same airstrip on which the plane I was in was going to take off. In Jamaica, I remember watching the planes landing just off what seemed like our wing tips as we waited on the ground to make the U-Turn at the end of the sole runway on which the new larger jet liners could actually land and take-off without ending up in Kingston Harbor. It was a game I played in my head that the pilot of my plane was timing his turn around and set up for take-off with just enough time to speed down the runway barely missing the landing plane which had slowed enough to turnout at the far end of the paved strip. Mostly, in recent decades I have not witnessed landing and departing aircraft using the same runway from large major airports like Mumbai. Typically they queue on the ground and in the air like participants for a Disney adventure ride for their respective airstrips to enter and exit.

Auto-image-processing sometimes creates effects I think are pretty cool, like the ghost shadows of the trees taken while moving at speed in a car.

… On the ground in Goa. After coordinating with the driver that was sent to pick me up at the airport, it was a pleasant couple of hours enjoying a mostly pastoral drive to Jungle Dance in Arambol, where I will be teaching for the week. We had daylight most of the way, and I played with clicking shots on my phone through the car windows, though I was more focused on just enjoying the change of scenery and relatively fresh air coming through the open windows of the car. As in Jamaica, trash is mostly burnt in piles, and I think that Sunday may have been “burning day”, so we frequently passed some dying fires. Still the scenery of the small villages and larger townships we passed through hinted at the Portuguese history in the area with some obvious European details in the architecture, and a few names of establishments that were either Portuguese or words derived from the language. My driver, Yesh, filled me in on some of the history in the area, and I was remembering that another Fulbrighter was here a week ago for the launch of her book about Goa and its generations old history of Portuguese settlers. I will need to look up her book at some point. But not right now.

… quick aside… I am settling into the apartment the organizers of the Goa Dance Residency have found for me to stay while I am teaching the next five days and as I just met the other resident, a small grey mouse, who appears to be sharing my room with me. He’s seems shy and would not stick around for me to take his picture. I think I will keep my bags off the floor, in case he decides he would prefer to be relocated.

This apartment is semi-detached from the house next to it, and quite large with separate living, bedroom, kitchen and washroom/toilet. There is no hot water, but I have gotten used to minimal hot water, and once upon an age ago, I used to be a wilderness guide in Baja California where my morning ablutions were a dunk in the ocean. I’ll be fine for the week. However, just for tonight, getting around in the dark was a little disorienting, but after being led on the short walk to the main compound of Jungle Dance to meet everyone and have dinner, I was able to find my way back with some assistance of being pointed in the right direction. The porch light is not working and they will replace the bulb tomorrow, but I had not realized just how invisible my place would be under full nightfall. I thought I recognized the house next to it, but I almost didn’t walk far enough to make out the solid darkness of the house and it’s iron gate with a rust patina.

I was preparing a whole other blog post about my week, but I will finish it for publishing in the next couple of days. My transition from the cosmopolitan congestion of Mumbai to the rural solitude of Arambol peaked more of my interest in writing today. About thirty years ago, I was involved with the first “Body Tjak” project by Keith Terry and I Wayan Dibia, where I was one of twenty-four performers evenly split between coming from the USA and coming from Bali. After developing the work in California, we toured to Bali and Java in Indonesia, where our first stop was in Ubud in the interior of Bali. This transition to Arambol along with the ambiance and amenities of my residence resonate strongly for me with that experience. It fascinates me how much the experiences of my time here in India seems to be dredging up embodied memories through all of my senses. At the same time, I feel no sense of comparative judgment. Nothing feels bad nor good, worse nor better; the experience just is what it is. Being able to draw comparisons to previous things from my life seems to calm any anxieties I start out with for each new venture. I had no real idea what to expect when arranging to teach this week in Goa, and the sensory familiarities are both calming and comforting.