Currying Favor: A Trip to India

A Made-for-Mullings Mini-Serial

by
Rich Galen

Dr. K.A. Paul is an evangelist of Indian extraction who now lives in Houston, Texas. We crossed paths several years ago and have remained in touch off-and-on since then. Dr. Paul wants to hire me but I tell him if he were paying me he could call me whenever he wanted and I would have to talk to him. As he doesn't pay me, he can call me whenever he wants but if I don't want to talk to him I don't have to. This is a much better relationship.

At any rate, Dr. Paul says he preaches to thousands of people in India and Africa. I have never seen this and I have told him I think he preaches to three people in a phone booth. He has asked me to go with him on one of his trips overseas but I have been busy, what with designing the strategy for the Bush campaign, then inventing the legal theories for the Florida recount, then working out who should have which Cabinet post, and what not.

About a week ago Dr. Paul said he was going to India on May 16 and would be returning on May 22 and I should come with. I look at my schedule and decided this was as good a time as any.

Herewith are my adventures.

Thursday, May 10:

Dale, Dr. Paul's assistant in Houston, calls to tell me the itinerary is completed and ready to be faxed. I remind her that I wanted to fly on Delta as far as possible. She tells me Delta flies as far as Bombay. Good enough, I say, let's do it.

I want to fly on Delta because I want to use the system-wide upgrade certificates I have been given. In that way Dr. Paul can pay an inexpensive coach fare and I can fly Business Elite which is what Delta calls business class now that they have done away with first class on Atlantic overseas flights because no business in the world was paying that much for travel with the possible exception of that guy Tito who paid $20 million to fly to the Space Station.

I find the upgrade certificate which was issued on May 12, 2000 and is good for one year from that date. I am traveling on May 16, 2001 which is one year and four days from that date. I call Delta and ask for special dispensation to have the certificate extended for the four days.

I am told (A) They cannot extend the date, (B) the date doesn't have to be extended so long as I have the trip ticketed by May 12 and (C) at any rate they can't do anything because the flight is booked in the name of Rich Gallen.

For an unwanted "L" the upgrade was lost.

I call the travel agency in Houston to get the "L" removed. Getting the "L" out is, as it happens, one the things I do best.

The woman who is handling my reservation is named Oksana. Over the next few days when she called me she always said, "This is Oksana from the travel agent." This was very useful as it helped me quickly identify this Oksana from all the other Oksanas I know.

I explain what I need done and Oksana corrects my name, books the upgrades, and agrees to Fed Ex the tickets to me so I can take them, with the about-to-expire certificates, to Reagan National Airport to do the exchange.

I have cleared business class on the Washington to Atlanta leg. And the Frankfurt to Bombay leg, but I am waitlisted on the Atlanta to Frankfurt leg.

Delta, I know, will come through for me.

Friday, May 11:

To go to India you need a visa. In Washington, DC the easiest way to get a visa is to go to the embassy of the country in question and request one.

The Indian Embassy is located, not surprisingly, on Embassy Row in Washington, DC. Embassy Row is a six or seven block stretch of Massachusetts Avenue where a lot of these buildings have been constructed. The British Embassy and the Japanese Embassy are there. The French Embassy is not.

The sign outside the embassy says to go down a short stairway to get to the visa office. Under international law, when you walk into an embassy you are, in fact, walking into that country. Even knowing this, I am not prepared for the way the visa office looks. As the door closes behind me it is as if I have, literally, entered a foreign country. But, as that is what I had in mind, it is all right.

There is one woman standing behind a Plexiglas screen. There is a number machine to her left with a sign which says, "Do not take a number until you have filled out the forms."

I had downloaded the visa form from the internet the night before so I am very, very prepared. The cost is $60. Cash or money order. No checks no cards. Just like the bail bondsman, Eddie Moscone, in the movie "Midnight Run" played by Joe Pantoliano who is now playing the nut bag gangster, Ralph Cifaretto on The Sopranos.

My number is 92. The current number is 90, so I am in clover. My number, so to speak, comes up and I stand to walk to the window. A young woman, an American, steps in ahead of me.

"Are you number 92," I ask?

"I'm number 89, but I had to fill out my form," she says.

I point to the sign but decide if I get cranky about this I will stay cranky for the next two weeks and this is not a good thing. I wave her ahead and sit down to await my REAL turn.

I hand in my papers along with my two "passport sized photos" as instructed and am told to "Come back between 4:30 and 5:30."

I walk back to the Mullmobile which I parked about a block away and which has been having air conditioner trouble. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Five Washington Gas employees are standing around watching two others who are looking down into a manhole.

Demonstrating my best bonhomie, I say, "You know you all look like a scene from every spy movie ever shot in Washington, DC."

No one smiles.

I get in the Mullmobile, make a U-turn and drive down the street the other way.

The air conditioner is not working.

Back home, the tickets have arrived via Fed Ex, so I hop back into the Mullmobile and head off to Reagan National Airport to make the exchange.

I am only going to be a few minutes so I go into the short term parking, which only costs $2 million per hour. A car is backing out so I wait, blinker on, thinking about dropping the Mullmobile off at the Land Rover dealer on Wednesday and having them take me to the airport so they can fix it while I'm away.

The car clears the space and another guy zips in ahead of me. I tap my horn to give him the opportunity to do the right thing which, he does not do.

Do I have a 30-year-old sign on me which says "I'm am a pledge to TKE. Please treat me like crap?" My easy-going approach to this is not working out.

At the ticket counter I get in line behind busy, important people in the "First Class and Medallion" line which is where I always go.

The guy in front of me is whining that he has to go to Phoenix and it's going to be hot.

"I'm going to India," I say. In the "First Class and Medallion" line it is important never to miss an opportunity to one-up the guy ahead or behind you.

The ticket agent is used to dealing with overseas trips which is a big, big plus. I have cleared the Atlanta-Frankfurt leg for business class. The agent says the only seat left is 1A and we grab it.

Here's a traveler's tip. On domestic flights the bulkhead seat is a pain because, as there is no seat in front of you, you have to put all your stuff in the overhead.

This is also true on an overseas flight but, because they tend to be so long (the Atlanta-Frankfurt flight is listed at nine hours in the air) there is plenty of time to get your stuff after you take off. The real advantage is when everyone decides to sleep you don't have the seat back of the guy ahead of you under your chin for the whole flight.

Tip 2: On a flight which has six seats across, choose one of the two middle aisle seats. You won't be able to see out of the window, if you can all you'll see is the ocean, and if you have to go to the bathroom you are never blocked by the person sitting next to you. And, the person sitting next to you is never blocked by you because you BOTH have an aisle seat. Good stuff, huh?

I finish up with the Delta agent, take my tickets, and walk back to the garage. All is well. I mentally remove the TEKE pledge sign.

Next stop, CompUSA to buy a power converter so I can do important work on the airplane using the in-seat power supply. The thing costs $120 but, as the total flight time back and forth is a few seconds short of 40 hours, that is only three dollars per hour. A good price to be able to play golf, flight simulator and watch DVDs.

I love Flight Simulator. Occasionally, when someone is looking over my shoulder, I'll start Flight Simulator and wait until there's some turbulence. I'll jiggle the plane on the screen, look over at the snooper and say "I'm doing that." I love their reaction. They laugh, but they're not reeeeaaallly sure. I love doing that.

I have some time to kill so I go over to Best Buy to pick up some DVDs. I go to the "Under $10" bin. I don't know why you would pay $7 to see a movie when it is brand new, in the theater, in Dolby knock-your-socks-off-sound and then pay four times that to watch it on your home television set.

I end up with a Hitchcock (The Thirty-Nine Steps), a double John Wayne, a double Laurel & Hardy, and a collection of six W.C. Fields shorts.

I walk across the hall to the Borders book store to purchase a copy of the Lonely Planet guide to India. Lonely Planet, in my estimation, is the best collection of country guides available. This one is 1264 pages thick which is more about India than I wanted to know.

I head back to the Indian Embassy for my 4:30 to 5:30 appointment. I choose to avoid the CIA guys posing as Washington Gas employees so I go up another block and park there.

I open the door and there are a thousand people standing in line. I ask the young man standing ahead of me if he has taken a number but he says everyone is there to pick up their passport and I see they are all clutching the red receipt similar to the one I was given.

I watch to see how well the line is moving and it is going steadily so I throttle back into Alpha Wave mode and wait.

I have traveled extensively all over the world. Including France. Here is the critical rule: Never, never, ever let a customs or immigration agent see that you are impatient, annoyed, exasperated, or frustrated. They have the absolute power to stop you cold for hours or even days by simply doing … nothing.

Hello? Judge? I need a writ of mandamus to make this woman at the Indian Embassy go faster. Fat chance, Skippy. Settle in and wait patiently.

A woman comes in with the obligatory squalling infant in her left arm dragging his three year old brother with her right. By this time I have moved up about halfway and, so, adopt that superior air that you get when the line behind you is longer than the line ahead of you.

I decide to tell people that they don't have to take a number, showing the red receipt. I am a boon to all mankind. I am a world traveler and I am there to be helpful.

The line continues to move fairly smoothly and at 5:10 I have my previously pristine passport with a tourist visa for India on page 13. Heaven forbid they put it in the first available page.

This passport is unused, but it is a replacement passport for my expired one on which I traveled to dozens of countries several dozens of times.

I feel as if I have to report to the people on line, who are looking at my brand new passport, that I am a seasoned traveler and have been to dozens of countries several dozens of times but the old one, in which I had to have extra pages inserted not just once, but TWICE, expired and this is my first trip on my new passport and by the way I am traveling in business class, not coach like all of you are, all the way to India and back, so stand aside and let me get on with my very important business.

Saturday, May 12:

Medical Day. I have been to the Centers for Disease Control website to see what illnesses one can pick up in India. The answer? All of them.

The CDC recommends you get some anti malarial medication called Malarone and go armed with an antibiotic called Cipro. This information was double checked with the Secret Service Agents with whom The Lad was on duty during a trip of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to Hawaii.

There is a walk-in clinic, Advanced Urgent Medical Care, not far from my house so I hop in the Mullmobile, sans air conditioning, and drive down there.

I will not go through all the reasons I left but I will share one part of the experience. When I got there an older gentleman and one woman were waiting. The man was called in by the doctor as I was filling out the forms - almost all of which had to do with the financial aspects of this visit and one page had to do with the medical stuff.

The man came back out and we waited, and waited, and waited. About 20 minutes later the doctor walked in through the front door with … office supplies!

I got up and said that I would rather my physician deal with medicine and that the name of the place is "Advanced URGENT Medical Care" and the "urgent" part didn't, in my mind, involve a visit to Staples, and left.

I looked on the Internet and found a listing for the Fairfax County Health Department which said they were really, really, good for people traveling overseas. I dialed and got the following message:

"Hello, today is January 15. We will be re-opening next Tuesday. Have a nice day."

I didn't think they would be open on a Saturday, but I had no idea they were not going to be open during the last two weeks of January, all of February, April or the beginning of May.

The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices (who had warned me not to go that clinic) suggested I go a similar outfit up in McLean, Virginia.

McLean is a very hotsy-totsy section of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. This clinic does a good business because the rich people who live there know they can't call their regular doctor for a minor deal on a weekend because the regular doctor is probably teeing off on the fifth at Congressional and you'd better have a limb hanging off to drag him from the course.

Anyway, this is like a small hospital. There are clerks, nurses and two doctors. My name is called and the nurse, after I explain what I need - prescriptions for those two drugs - asks me if my shots are up to date.

"Yes," I say without hesitation.

"When was your last tetanus shot?"

"I don't know."

"When did you last get ANY shot?"

"The army," I say. "You know, I'd like to slightly change my answer to your question. My new answer is, 'No'."

The doctor has had a good deal of experience with travel to places where very small bugs make a very nice living and suggests "strongly" that I get a hepatitis A shot, a hepatitis B shot, a polio booster, a tetanus shot, and a meningitis shot.

I was a Polio Pioneer when I was about five. I INVENTED the polio vaccine. Well, me and Dr. Salk and Dr. Sabin. But I agree to get all of them. The doctor recommends I get three shots today and then the other two on Monday.

It WAS like being back in the army.

She tells me to start the anti-malarial medicine the day before I get on the plane, and to start taking the Cipro at the first sign of Mahatma's Revenge. She also recommends I take along some Imodium AD.

This trip is not sounding quite as exciting as it did earlier this morning.

I pay the bill, which at $237, means the doctor is making a very nice living, too.

Later that evening The MDofS&D and I are driving down the parkway to have dinner with some friends and I ask her the name of that huge movie about India, thinking I need a title for this travelogue.

"The David Lean movie?"

"Yeah."

"A Passage to India."

"That's not the one I mean."

"The Jewel in the Crown," she asks?

"That's it. Who directed that?"

"It was a made-for-TV mini-series."

"Oh. Can I call my travelogue "The Jew in the Crown?"

"No."

"How about "Ghandi?"

"It's spelled 'G-a-n-d-h-i'."

"How did you know, From the way I SAID 'Gandhi,' that I was going to spell it wrong?"

No response. But I think she may have given me the same look Myrna Loy used to give William Powell in the "Thin Man" movies.