Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

The most gasp-filled hour in road race history might be the hour-long ride to Indira Ghandi International Airport in Delhi. A thousand near misses leaves me exhausted. It is dusk going on night. Highway lights are dim in many places. Some cars and trucks have one or no headlights. And the air is full of dust and smoke. So it was really hard to see the elephant, mahout atop, plodding down a thoroughfare in Delhi! Amazingly, I have never seen cars stopped due to an accident or even a bump or scrape, nor a dead dog, pig, or cow along the road, much less an elephant. (And we think hitting a moose is dangerous—think of hitting an elephant…!)

At the terminal four score taxis and cars are stopping for disembarkation of passengers while others jockey to extricate themselves from the tangle—like a worm trying to get out of a box of night crawlers.

The queue starts on the sidewalk. In ten minutes I am inside the terminal building with my carryon and a big bag that is not nearly so heavy now that I have delivered my colleagues' extra textbooks to the librarian at NTC.

Immediately one is in a second queue. They screen only your checked bags here, right by the front door, putting a white band around each piece that says “Indian Airlines Security Checked Delhi.” OK, one down.

There’s no signage in this huge hall. You have to get close enough to read the TV screen each airline has over each of its check in stations. What the heck – I’ll go left. Wrong! I ask one of the numberless uniformed people where to find Continental. “Back—go back.”

I’ve never seen so many personnel. Soldiers in khaki, some with bamboo-looking batons, others with really old sub-machine guns. And guys in white shirts rounding up the trolleys, which are free for use here. Of course one thing India has is cheap labor more than putting motors in everything. Blue uniform people herding folks to this check-in counter or that. Women in red jackets (Indians like red—it’s in their flag) and navy skirts checking us. “Sir, did you pack your bag yourself? Did anyone give you anything to take? Has it been in your possession?” This drill happens to me twice in twenty minutes. “Do you have anything in your carry-on with batteries?” “O yes, my camera has four AA.” Anything else?” ‘Not that I can think of.” “No cell phone?” “O, yes the cell phone—I haven’t used it since I got to India! Sorry.” “OK. Sir.”

(BTW, in the college in India I am “Sir.” At Northern Essex Community College I am “Who?”)

At the final screening there is no concern for shoes, unlike the USA (probably due to Richard Reid, the would-be shoe bomber). But I dump everything in my pockets into the plastic bin—it’s easier that way. In the queue my turn comes next. I go through the “rose arbor” labeled “Gents” after which one undergoes the wand. Pretty intimate, too. Women go through the ladies’ gate and then behind a modesty screen where a madam supposedly gives her the wand once-over. (I mean, how would I know?) This is so different from the high tech whole body “air puff” scanners you stand in at the new Liberty Airport at Newark.

Now I am at the gate. It is after midnight. We are taking off in a Boeing 777 for non-stop 16 hour flight to Newark. I must say goodbye to India. It’s been a wild ride!

Speaking of saying goodbye, as I was grading finals in the guesthouse the night before I left, a young man came to the hallway. “You don’t remember me, do you?” “Ashish!” I cry, rising to hug this friend I haven’t seen for two years. “Don’t tell me it’s you!”

(BTW—you pronounce his name like a sneeze—or maybe a minced oath, depending on the degree of excitement. My emphasis was definitely the sneeze!)

Ashish is the one I’ve been telling people about for two years. In 2004 Tim Tennent (Gordon-Conwell Seminary prof), Matthew from a church in Topsfield, and I were looking at a map of India so Asheesh (Gesundheit!) could point out the remote mountain area where God was calling him to start a ministry. It was a place with zero Christians—possibly very dangerous. “What do you need from us as you go?” I had asked him. “I want no money. God will provide for me. But please—your prayers.”

So he tells me how God now has blessed the ministry with a school with 64 kids and several teachers. He showed me a video clip on his cell phone of kids reciting the Lord’s Prayer two words at a time—that’s how they start learning English. All from Hindu families who know the emphasis but want their kids to get ahead and learn English, Also he has three churches already—all by prayer and pluck!

Three years ago I had asked Ashish (Gesundheit!) [Sorry this is starting to sound like a Victor Borge routine] about marriage. He is a very good-looking son-of-a-gun. “I don’t think about it,” he had said, “Mom will let me know when she’s found someone.”

Well—BIG NEWS! He is now engaged to Reba, a student I had in my class last year, on December 18.

“You ARE COMING, Dr. G!”

“I wish I could, but no, I won’t be in India then.”

“You MUST come to see us wed—and experience a true Indian ceremony.”

I truly wished I could go—but it’s not exactly a few towns downriver from Haverhill.

He (see how cleverly I avoided the Gesundheit by using the pronoun this time?) calls Reba who is across the driveway in the Women’s Hostel to have her come to the guesthouse.

They are so devoted—you can see it their eyes. I want a photo. I have to ask them to stand closer to close the 18-inch gap between them for a good picture. They manage to inch a bit closer, but not anywhere near touching. Why? This is India! In the USA a couple 5 weeks from marriage would show no daylight at all between them. I doubt Ashish and Reba have ever kissed. I don’t know how they have such discipline in India. But they do—and I admire it.

Well, Mr. Toad, we’ve had a wild ride together.

When I get to Boston I just might find someone at the airport willing to make this toad a prince!