Because I am at home, I chill at lot with G's mom. She's a very eloquent story-teller. She waves her hands, her eyes sparkle and her face twists in playful contortions as she repeats "dialogues" from her stories. An afternoon with her whiles away in no time!

Today she regaled me with stories about her experiences with the ariports world-wide. Mind you, she is a very well-travlled person and can be a vile Maratha woman that she is if not given the legit service and respect. Especially at airports.

Last year, on returning from America, her suitcase didn't arrive at the Bombay airport. When she tried reporting her missing luggage to the British Airways officials, the guy demanded Rs.1200 from her. Enraged, she raised her voice and created a ruckus at the airport that drew attention from other officials. They immediately came to her rescue, and promised to call her i 2 days when they had some news about her suitcase.

Three days and no call later, she called the BA office. They asked her to come to the airport the next day and identify her bag. They reached the said office at 9.30am , 30 minutes prior to their meeting. After being sent to a couple different floors, they finally found the BA office. The hallways were empty and stark and the only man (peon, officer?? no idea!) approached them spoke to them extremely politely and whispered secretively that they should get Rs.500 as a travel reimbursement. Auntiy and her son - finally glad to have found someone who actually knew what he was talking about asked the man to lead them to the exact BA office. After showing them to the door, the man coyly put forth his hand and chirped, "tip ma'am."
Aghast, and scared - coz the hallways were still empt, Auntie pulled out a 10 rupee note and before she could say anything, the man grabbed the note, "will do. will do," and disappeared.

So finally Auntie entered the office and waited there for another hour before she was called in the officers cubicle. The officer, treated this simple customer-service matter, like a business-deal and offered Auntie Rs.300 without so much as referring to her missing suit-case! Her patience on the test, Auntie once more, cool-headedly explained her situation and with a steelness in her voice demanded that the bag be delieverd to her house in Sion. At this- the officer bristled and said, we don't deliver- you have to take it yourself.

Being a world-class travler, she has been in these situations before and was aware that it is a BA policy to send missing luggage to the passenger's door-step. She requested the officer to not allow her to remind him of BA's rule. At which the officer insisted, it works differently here, you have to identify your bag first. Frustrated, Auntie agreed. Before leaving the office to go to the godown where all the missing luggage is kept- Auntie said to the officer, "Btw, you owe me Rs.500. not Rs.300. for the trouble I went through to come here."

The officer retorted, "it is only Rs.150 in a cab from Sion." And Auntie met his retort with an equally lethal one - "I took a Cool-Cab. What's it to you?" After much haggling, that Auntie didn't want to describe, the officer gave her Rs.450. (At this point, she sighed and cursed the Indians, nalayak hai sab.)

FastForward to the Godown. They heard a man weeping when they entered the godown. Now Auntie is also a very gentle soul, so she kindly enquired with the man who was weeping. His story was such - his brother was set to leave for America when he got a hear-attack and died on the airport. Now the luggage was already sent in and just to retrieve the luggage this poor man had to go through so much crap. "He had been shuffled around from one place to another for 4 hours." Auntie told me with a tinge of incredulity and abhorrence in her voice.

At the godown, she finally got her suit-case (she didn't tell me if anything was missing- that would be another story!) and swore and cursed the way back home.

Nalayak hai saab saale.