Only in India

This story has inspired a novel still sitting on my hard drive, a short travel piece published in an anthology and a short story published in another anthology. It appeared in none of them, however, because it didn't fit.

It really should to stand on its own two feet.

In 1994, I received a grant from a now-defunct program at the Canada Council called “Explorations” to write a first novel – the one still sitting on my hard drive. My now former husband and I decided that since he was ready to quit his job, anyway, and since my novel would require some research in India, we should use the money to spend three months in India where I could tap out a first draft.

He and I had had a child by then, a son named Jarryd who would be twenty months old when our trip was scheduled. We thought breaking up the trip would be easier on him than a long haul, so we flew from Montreal to New York to London to Kuwait City to New Delhi. The trip took about twenty-four hours.

When we arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport, three jumbo jets, including theo ne we were traveliing on, disembarked at the same time. The people in the snaking queues at Customs and Immigration were leaking the energy peculiar to people functioning on the dregs of adrenaline. The energy is the combination of the impatience born of sleep deprivation and routines interrupted while travelling through time zones and the resignation of having to wait for a random amount of time in order to jump through a capricious bureaucratic hoop and being patient and polite in the process.

The situation was understandably stressful.

Jarryd, had weathered the trip reasonably well, but had a toddler-tolerance level for inconvenience, and from his seat in the backpack in which is dad was carrying him, began screaming into the cavernous space. We tried the two calming-down methods available to us: bopping him up and down and talking to him, but neither worked for long. We had neither food nor drink to offer him. Taking him out of the backpack would have meant other challenges: he weighed a solid thirty-five pounds, which meant the idea of either of us carrying him while we dragged our carry-on luggage through the queue was an image neither of us could summon up the courage to consider, and setting him down to risk his wandering off into that forest of legs was not an option.

Meanwhile, the energy around us was becoming more tense because of his his distress.

I focussed on envisioning getting through the queue and getting our bags before we got out of the airport, then getting food for my kid and a stiff drink for myself.

My focussing was interrupted by a plaintive voice floating above the ambient noise. “Where is the crying child?” it wailed. “Where is the crying child?” My reaction ricocheted between the fear of “Oh my god! They're going to kick us out of here” and the outrage of “Give us a freaking break! The kid's between travelling for twenty-four hours”.

As her voice got closer, fear won out. I reached to pull off the backpack so I could calm Jarryd by holding him. The woman appeared beside us. She was a wisp of femininity wrapped in a maroon sari wearing a nickel-size burgundy bindi on her forehead..

“Come with me.” She crooked her index finger at us.

We followed her obediently. The only thing I was confident of at that moment was that people do not get jailed in India because they cannot control their crying children.

Jarryd, meanwhile, had calmed down. The fact that we were moving through an ocean of people who were smiling and making googly eyes at him was all the distraction he needed to change his mood.

The woman deposited us at one of the Immigration officers posts. She smiled at us for the first time: “You need to take car of your baby.”

She had bumped us to the top of the line. I stuttered a thank you.

The Canadian in me could not resist looking at who was at the head of line before we got there. I expected glares or curses or at least under-the-breath mutterings. It was a family of a man, a woman and a girl. The woman and the girl waved and smiled at Jarryd. The man looked bored.

*JG

 

 

Comments

[Cristina]

...a difficult moment that probably every parent has had to endure...and how wonderful that people can be understanding instead of miserable. I try to remember those challenges when stuck in a plane of crying babies...just knowing the little ones and their parents are probably suffering more than I am!

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