Picking up Mike

I went to get Mikey at the airport tonight.
His flight arrived at 11:30, so the driver suggested we leave around 10:30 as it could take 45 minutes to get to the airport. Well, it took 30 minutes, so I got there around 11pm. Let me just tell you; I’m used to it now so I didn’t think much of it , but that was some of the most congested traffic I’d ever seen. But it all flowed and I hopped out of the car into the steamy foreign air.
I picked my way through the throng of people to locate arrivals. Here’s the set up. You aren’t allowed to enter the airport without a ticket. So they set up a gate aside the long building where people exit and the crowds pile in four deep all the way along it waiting for their friends and family. This is a line four to six deep and easily 100 yards
It was quite a scene and I wish I had brought my camera. One gentleman I saw talking on his cell had a thumbnail easily two inches long. There was a young Sikh who had had some serious eye injury recently. Blood oozed out the sides of his puffy bandage. I stood near a family where they had “uglied” their daughter. This is a thing where the parents do to protect a child from the evil eye. The idea is that beauty attracts envy and thus evil magic. So, they cut a girl’s hair short and give her big, fake moles and black spots on the face. It’s startling to see, as it has the desired effect; the child is not pretty.
So I stood there for about two hours in the throng. I hadn’t eaten and in the heat I got woozy. Groups of young men would gather around me, gawking and joking with each other, and eventually peel off. I get open stares a lot, even at work. It happened on the first trip, too. You get used to it and I had kind of forgotten about it. But in the human sauna that was the Chennai airport, the last thing I wanted was four extra people in my space. Maybe I should make that clear, too. When I said people were four deep, I meant that there were four people in about five feet of space. People are close and think nothing of squeezing into inhumanly tight spaces. They just sidle in until they are a hair’s breadth from you. Somehow, though the mild vibe makes it more bearable. Like, in the States if people were that close the crowd might take a aggravated, dangerous mood. I’ve been shoved in bars for accidentally being that close to people before. Here people accept it and feel no malice because they don’t have the same sense of personal space.
At the time, I was tired and just wanted it to be over, but it was a pretty interesting experience. And I have to do it again Sunday. Maybe this time I’ll remember a camera.