Adventure to India begins

Finally, after several of weeks of waiting on tender-hooks for visa/contract/passport/visa again, my journey begins! It starts early on a rainy Monday morning with a weepy Mum, bravely smiling Dad and a trip to the airport. I have a heavy cold- cough, runny nose, aches, chills and general associated misery. I should reach my final destination in about 20 hours.
I go to check in, realise my bags need rearranging, check in again. I notice at this point, quite a few babies around the Etihad check in area. I think, they cant all be on my flight and proceed to wave off my melancholy parents. During the security ordeal, I again notice several babies attached to distinctly Indian looking women. This has me a little concerned as I buy a few overpriced books and bottled water after the two day trek to the D gates at Dublin airport.
Its when I am waiting for the boarding to start that I really take notice of all fifteen babies, fifteen, I kid you not. They boarded first, business and baby class to begin. When I got onto the plane about ten out of the fifteen were screaming, not crying now, really screaming. OK, I think, I can deal with this, I have head phones and earplugs, mercifully the babies are not too close to my seat. There were al least two babies crying at any one time. I heard them over the movie and through the earplugs. I got no sleep (as is my custom) because the air conditioning dried my sinuses out to the point where breathing was actually painful.
Seven hours and two bad movies later, we landed in Abu Dhabi. It was over 40 degrees outside there, so of course inside it was minus fifteen. Why do hot countries insist on having competitions to see how cold and uncomfortable they can make their buildings. I might add that it’s always the buildings that you can’t leave that they make coldest and driest, like transit areas or waiting rooms.
Shivering and miserable I wait for the next flight. Curiously enough the babies have disappeared. This does not cheer me up much as my pessimism leads me to believe they will all jump out as we board. I normally have quite an optimistic disposition, cynical yes but still optimistic. Boarding begins and the two ladies in wheelchairs are first aboard. Then the call goes out to families. I brace my self for the stampede... and none comes. Oh Joy! Even better, they then call lone women! That would be you the man said and ushered me aboard! Things were looking up. Happily, the inside of the plane was not baltic or saharan in climate! I was in my seat and asleep before they shut the doors, sweet, sweet oblivion.
The smiling hostess/steward/whatever other pc title they want, woke me for my meal, for which I was grateful as the food on the last flight was dire, rubber chicken and rocky bread.
I was bitterly disappointed, more of the same. How is it possible to replicate identically bad food worldwide? Surely the bad chefs in Dublin have different ways to make the food suck than the bad chefs in Abu Dhabi. They must be using the same bad food recipes worldwide.
Anyhoo, soon after we landed in Mumbai. I had spotted a few airport workers in Abu Dhabi wearing medical face masks. when we landed in Mumbai, thanks to the human air conditioning on the flight, my nose had started running again. During the flight they had handed out the usual arrival form and another special form for swine flu. So coughing sniffing and spluttering I made my way through the airport, where everyone wore masks, to a section where medical looking people were examining passengers and their forms.
My heart sank, would I be sent home, put in quarantine, put down or suffer some other unimaginable fate?
I got in the queue and sniffed quietly until my turn came. The medical looking person did not even look at my face, she took my form and just waved me along!
With a pep in my step anew I fled the airport, changed my Euros into Rupees and looked nervously for my driver.
The last time I came to India my driver had been stuck in a traffic jam and was late. Of course I didn't know this and emerged happily into the Mumbai heat to find no one to meet me, except about four hundred men meeting other people or looking for a fare. A very nice man, noticing me looking green with worry and standing around like a sore thumb, offered to let me use his phone. He opened the conversation with “I don’t mean to intimidate you madam, but you look a little frightened...”
This time I spotted a very little guy with a sign that had my name. He took my 30 kilo case and placed me at a pick up point.
“don’t move, don’t move, I get car” and off he skipped.
Okey doky little dude. When he arrived some time later with the car, he tried to put my case in the boot, but the little dude looked half the weight of the thing so I tried to help. Immediately four guys materialise beside me and gently prise the case away from me and into the boot, while looking at me like I had two heads. I am a western woman, what was I thinking, lifting my own case?
I got into the car, nice and cool, not baltic, just cool and fell fast asleep. I woke up a few hours later, the sun was rising and I started to recognise Pune.
“five minutes madam”
Super. We arrived, woke up the dogs and night watchman, waved goodbye to the little dude, and filled in some paperwork. Its about six am, but India is all about the paperwork.
At about six thirty I get to my new home, my very own little piece of Sangam.
Breakfast is at eight thirty, and I am hungry, so I decide to unpack and try and kill some time until then, have breakfast and sleep until lunch. I fell asleep at about ten past eight.
Rage.