Yesterday night I was sitting at the airport in my usual yoga aasan - my shoes on the chair and my head on the floor! Yeah i practice this yoga aasan whenever i am very very angry! (another stupid study in a stupid US university has claimed that this yoga aasan increases the flow of blood to your head, and makes you forget what you were angry about!) My spicejet flight arrived over 2 hours 15 minutes late, and i finally reached home at 3 in the morning! Anyways thats not the point of this post.

While i was waiting at the airport, there was this very sweet and humble porter guy, who was distributing free water bottles to the fuming passengers. Compared to the cold spicejet guys, this guy had a very sad and genuine guilt in his voice. He was trying to talk to so many people that the flight is coming, they can have some water, they can move around and a lot of usual stuff! Inspite of me being me, i could not get angry on this guy. Instead I passed a smile whenever he came to my corner! The best thing was, he was moving with the same energy and smile even at 1145 in the night, as he was doing at 9.30 !!

Sigh! I wish Europeans were even 0.01% as sweet as this guy!!

Last Sunday, I returned to India after spending about 7 months in a cold, ice covered land! Ab bhai, hum kahi jaayen aur wana nautanki na ho? But this time, the nautanki was while coming back, at the final immigration checkpoint!!

In short, the whole episode was a ego tussle between pig-eating careless immigration officers, who were trying to put their blame on a original-desi-ghee-parantha-eating proud Punjabi, who doesn't give a shit when he is right!

So what happened was, I gave the immigration counter chick my passport, boarding card and my residents permit for the exit stamp. The chick started reading my passport intensely, and then started matching my face with my passport. She did the same thing atleast 5 times!! And then within two minutes, her activities became even more peculiar!! She started counting pages on my passport, and then matching the entry stamp on my passport with the one she had in her hand!! And then discussing my passport with the guy sitting next to her!!

She did this whole exercise again and again for close to about 10 minutes! And then finally declared - "I do not have a record of your legal entry into this country!" I was like - that can not happen, as I have all the stamps and even a resident permit, how can i not have a record of my entry!


She showed me the passport and then I understood the problem!! When i went to the ice-covered country in December, another careless chick at the immigration counter stamped my passport for the entry date. She being a blonde, must have had a wrong date set up on her stamp! And now my passport had the entry stamp for January 2010 instead of December 2010!! oh and my visa was valid from October 2010 !!

I tried explaining the problem to her, but that racist bitch was probably judging me by my color and not by the facts!! She immediately asked me to step aside till she takes further action! Me being me, said something to her which translated to - I wouldn't even like to stay here legally, leave illegally! :D

I think she got angry as within few seconds some police guys and bouncer looking guys appeared! :D I asked her to check her computer, to which she said (trust me, thats the level of English she knew) - "I computer no work!" God knows what she meant!! Phew!! And no working computers on an international airport???? Where was I? 2011 or 1921 ??? Chutiyap!!

Anyways, so i was left with police guys and bouncers keeping an eye on me while she took my passport, boarding cards and all other papers!! :D I would be lying if i said i wasn't scared! :D And i would be lying even more if i said i din feel like shitting in my pants during the next 35 minutes when i was standing at the airport, with my passport being checked in deep chambers, and some police guys keeping an eye on me!! :P

After some harrowing 35-40 minutes, she finally appeared from somewhere!! Thank God!! somewhere around the 30 minute mark, I thought that she found her mistake and then died of an heart attack out of shame!! Anyways, I went to her and she said, I got the entry record, you may go now. Without any apology!!

Me: I think you should apologize!
She: Please go!
Me: Bhen di takki!
She handed me the passport and then walked away!!

Seriously! This is all our fault! All these foreigners treat Indians as shit in their own countries, and when these hippies/gypsies come to India, everyone prays them like they are Gods! Until they get the same shit back from the Indian officials, they wont understand that how humiliating the whole experience is!

I, for the record, am never ever going back to that country again in my life! (Oh, and thank the rain Gods! If the flight hadn't been delayed by 30 minutes, I would have missed it!! And would have had to spend one full extra day in the hell!)

Edited to add: And yeah, my visa was expiring that very day!! So if i had missed that flight, and since there was no other flight till the next day, that bitch would definitely have found a reason to throw me in jail!

Assholes!