Welcome to India

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

Over half a decade had passed since my last visit to India, Hyderabad. The plane was due to land at night and the sight of a carpet of street lights marked the beginning of Hyderabad as our Airbus 330 began its descent to the brand new Rajiv Ghandi airport.

Stepping of the plane into a shiny connecting gangway, I marveled at the architecture of the airport. The tiles were smooth and clean. The glint of shiny polished metal beams gave the airport that futuristic look. The signs were in that crisp sans-serif font with a clear background. Shiny new trolleys that were easy to manoeuvre were easily positioned for the convenience of disembarking passengers. The temperature was well regulated with hidden ducts silently venting air conditioned air.

As we turned the corner towards the immigration counter we were confronted by a line of white saree clad ladies, nurse, armed with ear thermometers. Seated behind them were a line of 4-5 doctors seated at desks. As we got closer they made sure we had filled our Swine flu forms.

‘Do you have any flu like symptoms?’

I said, ‘No.’ being careful not to cough as that would be misinterpreted in this futile attempt to control the spread of Swine flu.

‘Do you have a temperature?’ one of them asked.

‘No.’ I replied, thinking to myself that even if I did I would have taken an anti-pyretic such as Paracetamol (acetaminophen 1 gram) and probably some ibuprofen (400mg) before touch in an attempt to lower any temperature.

They just let me pass until I reached the line of doctors who repeated the questions, being doctors they were skeptical of my answers and asked me to go back to have my temperature taken. I made my way back knowing that I had to cooperate otherwise I faced the possibility of being put into confinement for 7 days if they suspected Swine flu or at least a few hours while they subjected me to a rapid blood test to see if I had the influenza virus type A.

Returning back to the nurses I noted that they were not using disposable covers for the ear thermometers and instead were swabbing them with a cotton wool bud soaked in spirit. I pointed out that this was rather unhygienic. Not used to protesting people the nurse did what Indians tend to do when they don’t know what to reply and just smile. Though to her credit she replied she was using a swab to clean the thermometer probe. I pointed out it would take at least a few minutes for the alcohol to sterilise the surface, and in the case of other blood borne diseases it could take much more than simple alcohol to sterilise the thermometer.

Anyway somewhere in the conversation and dealing with the next passenger I just walked back to the line of doctors avoiding having my ear poked with an unhygienic thermometer probe. I had got through the health cordon and made myself down to the immigration officer.

The contrast with the Pakistan attempt to isolate passengers with flu symptoms though was quite stark. At Karachi airport a banner had hung asking patients to volunteer themselves to come forward and effectively ruin their holidays. The Indians were definitely one up on their neighbours at this first comparison.

The immigration officer was quite efficient and soon had all our passports and PIO cards processed. I had been quite skeptical that the flimsy PIO card would work and wondered whether I would have to boarding a plane to return to my origin, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the paper based PIO card in passport shape and size did the trick and gave me entry into India. While there were no fancy logitech cameras taking photographs of passengers unlike Karachi the officer had the same passport scanning equipment present at Dubai international airport and did not have to do any laborious typing as in Karachi.

A short trip down the escalator led us to the conveyor belt where porters met us and asked if they needed our services. I asked how much, they answered pointing to a notice board that read porterage services 200 RS per porter. Same figure price as Karachi, though from an exchange rate point of view Karachi porters are in real terms cheaper.

As we were working out our luggage two smartly dressed men in suits came and asked us for our baggage checking slips and quickly compared the serial numbers with our luggage. Having confirmed the numbers we were allowed to proceed. Customs check involved passing all the items through an x-ray machine and then we were out. The outside of the airport had an equally impressive facade and the car park was well laid out but Indian craftmanship, or the lack therefor, began to show through with a poorly leveling for the trolley pathway causing our suitcases to tumble off their trolley. Once our bags were loaded up in a hired Tempo van the paid porters hung around hoping for a tip. No difference there between Indian and Pakistan.

Alhamdulillah, we had arrived in India.

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