Smoke gets in your eyes

When packing for India, Mom told me that Delhi was forecasted for "smoke." How could smoke be a type of weather? Does it mean that it's "fire season?" Is there ash in the air? In Israel I once saw a weather forecast for "sand," which essentially translated to sandy air -- not quite a sand storm, but enough particulate in the air that when you blew your nose at the end of the day, it looked as though you spent a significant amount of time at the beach. So what causes the smoke? Boarding the plane to India, I decided it was time to find out for my self.

I split the trip into two parts, both on KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), which I thought was going to be a nice, comfortable, open flight. Then the morning of my flight, Lufthansa went on strike, grounding the entire airline and sending frantic travelers to the likes of Air France and KLM. The wide-open A330 to Amsterdam was in minutes oversold by five seats. I decided to chance it, checked in my bag, and proceeded to the gate. Once at the gate, I ran into the manager for Air France (who does all of the ground handling for KLM at SFO) and wouldn't you know she was a former Virgin America employee. She cleared me a window seat and blocked the one next to it, giving me the only two empty seats on the entire plane.

The flight to Amsterdam was a relatively uneventful 12 hours. I watched a few movies and tried to sleep. Unfortunately the arm rests for KLM are permanently fixed in place, so although I had two seats, I wasn't able to fully take advantage of the space I had and lie down. Overall, I'm glad that I did not pay full price for the ticket -- KLM's fleet for the majority are from the 70s (mostly older A330 and B747s) and the interior has not been updated since. The seats are cramped together with very little leg room and the interior paneling is a powder blue shag rug.

 
Once in Amsterdam I had a short two hour layover to change planes, use the facilities, and stress over whether or not I was going to make it on my next flight to Delhi. Sure enough, passengers who were originally routed on Lufthansa through Germany were quickly filling up my once empty 747, and the plane was oversold by sixteen.

About five minutes before departure I heard the fateful sound of a dot matrix printer struggling to print out the manifest of all the passengers, and assumed that my fate was sealed. I went to the gate agent and asked in my most polite voice whether or not they had a seat for me, and sure enough he handed me a boarding pass for the flight. I sent a quick text message to Ruby letting her know that I was really coming, and for her to dispatch the driver that was going to meet me in Delhi. I was the last to board an incredibly packed 747 to India.

For some reason I somewhat dismissed this portion of the trip, thinking that it was going to be just a short jump to India. It was not. It was eight excruciating hours in the most cramped middle seat, and I could not wait to get off of that plane. Once we landed in Delhi, I even thought of those Chinese tourists who were pulling emergency slides to get off the airplane faster, and thought to myself, "I finally understand you."

After clearing immigration, tucking my passport into my money belt, and gathering my bags, I was ready for India. I exited through the main door to find a guy holding a piece of cardboard with "ZOEY" written in bubble letters, and we were off!

The drive to Ruby's house was a five hour drive through the city of Delhi and into the more open countryside. My driver spoke very little English but knew enough English to give me a head waggle and an explanation of "this is India" when I asked if my seatbelt worked. It did not. We left at around 2 AM and didn't arrive to Ruby's until around 7 AM. At times it was hard to imagine that it was the middle of the night. Delhi was still very active with people roaming the streets and many gathered around makeshift campfires or small food carts. I did see some extreme poverty and slums, but also plenty of high rises advertising various tech companies and some BMWs on the streets. The city also has a distinct aroma. Not necessarily a bad one, but an aroma. In some ways it reminded me of Santa Fe and how everywhere smells of the type of pine that they burn there. A smokey, earthy scent. Maybe this was the smoke that the weather forecast was describing?

A blurry photo from the back seat of the car of the smokey Delhi sky:

The driving habits of Delhi were similar to Cairo, only on the opposite side of the road. It is a former British colony after all. With a heavy hand on the horn we sped past Tuk Tuks and long haul trucks, on a mixture of highways and dirt roads. At some point I managed to fall asleep, probably due to pure exhaustion, and didn't wake up until the sun was rising and we were in open countryside.
The farms were a beautiful, lush green, with ponds of open water (probably a wonderful breeding ground for mosquitos) and these odd chimneys that sprung up like Egyptian obelisks in the middle of the fields. Maybe another contributing factor to "smoke?"

We made a noisy early morning arrival to Ruby's with the horn blaring, waking all of her neighbors as if to say "hey, look at this foreigner!" A groggy Ruby and her husband Rahul greeted me and brought me to my own room in the house with a nice ceiling fan, a fresh bottle of water, and a comfortable bed.

After more than a day of traveling I was quick to fall asleep again, and did not wake up until the late afternoon, just in time to get ready for Diwali.

Once up, Rahul helped me to "mix the water" for my shower, which consisted of filling a large bucket with alternating hot and cold water. I asked Rahul if it was possible to fill from both hot and cold faucets at the same time to which I got another response of "this is India." It was not. I was given a smaller bucket to ladle the water over me, and I was off. It was definitely a different showering experience, but not a bad one.

Once dressed, I helped Ruby, her mother-in-law, and sister-in-law decorate the house for Diwali. Diwali (the Festival of Lights) is one of the biggest holidays in India, and definitely the brightest. It falls on the darkest new moon of the year and people decorate their homes with bright lights, lamps, and candles. In total we lit 108 candles and lamps which were distributed throughout the house and walkways. Later we covered our heads and delivered some remaining candles and lamps to the neighboring Sikh and Hindu temples, where we sat cross legged and took part in the prayer service. Yours truly even got a blessing from Ruby's mother-in-law, a red dot between my eyes.

Once back we had a wonderfully prepared, homemade meal of daal, paneer tika masala, rice, and roti. The food was perfectly spicy and very filling.

And then it was time for fireworks! The men of the family set up fireworks in front of the house and we had quite the show, an experience that for safety reasons would never happen in the US -- amateur pyros, women in long flowing, flammable clothes, and little children running rampant. Sure enough, by the end of the night, one of the kids burned his finger on a sparkler, and Rahul's friend burned his hand while lighting some of the fireworks. The show, though, was impressive.

Once in bed, I finally decided to look up what smokey weather actually means. Turns out it's just a nice way of saying "heavy pollution." Well, this is India.