The Indian Head Roll

My flight to Kolkata was at 1pm, so I had some time for a complimentary breakfast at the hotel beforehand. Martin had long since departed for his early flight, so I ordered a taxi for myself at 10am to the airport after we had both been told that tuk tuks don’t go to the airport. Martin and I theorised that this is likely because the hotelier’s brother, uncle or cousin ran a taxi service and it turns out we weren’t far from the truth.

Just before 10 o’clock, I came down to the desk to check-out and enquired about the taxi. The man at the desk said “yes“ while performing an action I had now become accustomed to, which I will call the Indian Head Roll. This involves waving the head to one side, then to the other while saying yes or generally being agreeable. We had witnessed this prominently the previous day when I was trying to work out if a restaurant’s momos contain cardamom after I had had some with a particularly fragrant supply earlier in my trip.

“Do the momos contain cardamom?” I asked.

The server responded with a head roll and said, “Momo.”

Looking at my German friend, I could tell this was going to be tricky. Luckily I had the Google translate app on my phone and typed cardamon in, where a Hindi translation appeared. Trying again I said, “Do the momos,” followed by a hugging gesture, “contain” and finally pointing at the translation on my phone “cardamon?”

The server looked at me, slightly bemused, performed the head roll and said “Momo.”

Another three people at the restaurant took turns to look at my phone, while I asked with the full array of motions only to respond with a head roll and “Momo.” I gave up, ordered the momos and was pleased to discover that they came sans cardamon, which I attributed to my excellent performance skills.

In the evening beforehand, I wanted to check that a potential curry option wasn’t too spicy, to which I received a head roll and “yes” as a reply. To check that we were on the same page I asked outright “Is it spicy?” To this I got the same response of “yes” and another head roll. Bewildered by our lack of understanding one another and the waiter’s insistence that any enquiry warranted a positive response, I went for it and it was delicious.

The head roll hadn’t been a successful guide up to that point, which is why I negated my question to try to determine whether I was receiving the correct answer or whether the waiter was just trying to please me. So when I received a head roll about my morning’s taxi, I was dubious; No details had been taken, it all seemed very casual and we were minutes away from when I needed to leave.

I checked out and paid the bill, then the manager came around the desk and took my bag to his car before driving me to the airport. Martin and I had been mostly correct, but neither of us envisioned that it would be the manger himself making the run in his tiny little hatchback.

I got to the airport just over two hours before the scheduled departure time to discover that I had even more spare time as my flight was delayed by 25 minutes. This allowed me to casually go through the process of getting to the departure lounge at an Indian airport.

Before entering the building, you must show your ticket, or in my case a receipt on my phone, and passport to a security person. Once you’re through the doors, you find another security person waiting to again check your documents. In Bagdogra, there was even a dog to sniff my bag.

Any bags you wish to check-in need to be put through an X-ray machine, where they put a cable tie through – and sticker across – the zippers to show the bag has been through security. These stickers by the way are actually impossible to fully remove and I now have three different amounts of sticker residue left on my zip handles that I doubt I will ever be able to remove.

Then you proceed to the check-in desk to get the ticket and drop off your bags, which they inspect for the sticker to make sure you’ve not managed to put explosives in the bag in the 20 metres since the security check.

With a newfound sense of lightness, I headed upstairs where signs said the security gates were located. There is another security person to show documents to before a roped path which leads to the human scanners. The path zig zags making a ten metre walk at least eight times longer, though I had managed to find a straight route. I waltzed past two people making their way through the chicane, which gave me an immense amount of joy.

I placed electrical items in trays and let them make their journey through the black box of security while I stepped through a metal detector which made no noise. I then stepped onto a box and held out my arms to let a security guard casually wipe a hand metal detector across my torso before showing him my documents and allowing him to stamp my plane ticket.

This process has been the same for three internal flights I have taken, and I must say how confused I am at just how many people want to check my documents along the way. At Varanasi and Delhi there was even another security check between the gate and the plane, which obviously both wanted to see my ticket. At least it’s keeping people in employment.