I am someone who adapts quickly, pick up words in a foreign country and believe that it cannot be really difficult to get by in a new country.
With dreams of standing at the centre of the red square and saying “Spasiba” to the smiling faces around me, I boarded the Aeroflot Flight from New Delhi to Moscow.
Lesson one involved distortion and non compliance with standard appearance ethics and aesthetics. The flight stewardess was a big fat grumpy lady, in her early 40s who seemed to be forced by the KGB to operate on a flight full of tourists, in the vain hope of gathering intelligence. My heart skipped a beat, I knew something was different, only 3 minutes onto the flight and I started having a bad feeling about the next 7 hours.
With optimism and hope, I decided to don that smile on my face again and proceeded towards my seat.
Now, while I settled down in my seat looking forward to landing in Moscow and ‘maybe’ meeting some talkative Russian onboard who could reveal snippets about what, where and how much related questions about a city I’ve never been to.
A few seconds into my seat and I knew what I was getting into. It’s called depression.
With about 3 inches of leg space, no in-flight entertainment and a newly married Indian couple from Bihar next to me, this was going to be one of the longest flights of my life. Lesson two involved gearing up for the unexpected and I was up for the challenge. After all I was on vacation and nothing could deter me from enjoying myself and being happy.
Lesson three involved my first cultural awakening, the air hostess spoke little English. 2 sentences to be precise:-/
1. Seat Upright position please
2. Vegetarian meal order here now
That was her repository of the queen’s language. Nice.
Upon requesting a blanket since I was dressed for summer, the prompt response was ‘DA’ (which is YES in Russian). After about 6 requests and 18 DAs, I did not receive a blanket and was left wondering if she expects me to repeat DA and keep repeating it till I start feeling warm. (Might have been some secret Russian grandma recipe to beat the cold).
As I sat there wearing my 3 t-shirts, food was definitely on my mind and I was looking forward to devouring some assorted delicacies which would represent the best of Indo-Russian cuisine. As the food trolley painstakingly slowly got pushed towards me, I could feel my mouth salivating and the intensity greed and hunger multiplying itself manifold. I greeted the stewardess with a smile as wide as the River Mississippi and hurriedly grabbed the two neatly arranged foil paper covered boxes.
When I opened those boxes, something rolled down the side of my eye, it was a teardrop.
Since I had ordered a vegetarian meal, I was served RAW CARROTS (have to admit, they were stylishly cut into small pieces) and boiled rice. Yes, plain white rice boiled to perfection. With a dead appetite and a heavy heart, I asked her for a beer instead.
Voila! 3 seconds later I was sipping a chilled Tuborg! And exactly 3 seconds later to that, I heard a familiar voice of the female stewardess saying “3 Euro, beer 3 Euro”. I had to fuckin pay for beer on an international flight!
Finally we arrived in Moscow at 7.30 in the morning. I was hungry, cold and felt cheated but the thought of finally making it to the Russian Federation overwhelmed every other trivial negativity that might have cropped up in the previous seven hour airborne ordeal.
The immigration counter was my lesson 4, as I was filling up my arrival form and was not sure if I had to fill departure as well, I stood at the counter and asked the lady to stamp my passport.
She said something in Russian which obviously I did not understand, and responded with “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Russian, English only”. She repeated herself in a harsher, louder tone (Russian again)
After 3 attempts and my standard let-me-smile-and-pacify approach, she threw a pen on my face! And that’s when I realized I need to fill in the departure form as well. She had learnt her ‘sign language much better than me!
Out in the streets, everyone expected you to be a PhD in Russian linguistics, since every sign, every street name and every information board was in Russian. Thank fully I had researched my way to get to the Bellorusky train station and I somehow managed to meet my friend Alex who proved to be my Armor in the Shining Day.
Lesson 5 involved a little Absinth, a bunch of friends who really care, no knowledge of Russian, a baseball bat, a swollen head, a missed flight and detention at the airport J
Russians are known to be aggressive and treat their guests in a ‘special manner’. I was taken to a bar, I asked my Russian friends to order something for me since I could not read the Russian menu. They ordered a surprise for me. It involved Vodka, Tequila, Absinth, Rum, a helmet and a Baseball bat.
Join the dots yourself and you’d figure out the missed flight and the detention at the airport ;-)
if you cant, visit youtube for the video of the event :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn-S_UKl9ss
Da ?
