Passages from my diary of my trip to Punjab and India in November 2017:
We set off from London Heathrow Airport. Security checking was find. The staff knew about Sikhs wearing a small Kirpan and said nothing. I was waiting for my bag to come out of the scanner and realized that it had not come out. The lady on the other side of the desk had pulled it to the side. She said that she is going to check the bag. I said she cannot do this. She said "Why?" I said, "It has my food for me to eat. You cannot touch it. I can open it and show you instead." The lady looked confused and bewildered by my request. She repeated, "I just want to open it up and check everything. I repeated, "I am happy for you to check but you cannot touch my food. I will open it up for you." She said, "I will wear gloves(?)" I said, "Even if you wear gloves, I will not be happy." In that time, a Gursikh who works at the aiport arrives (good timing) and explains to the officer that I can open it up. She then said, "Okay, please open the bag." I said, "I can't just open it. I have my touched my shoes. I need to wash my hands first. I cannot touch my food bag with dirty hands." The lady probably thought I suffered OCD (which for the record- I don't). She looked so confused and bewildered. I went to wash my hands and came back. I opened my bag and showed that I had Sabjee in the Thermos pot. She was satisfied and we moved on.
When getting on the plane (Air India), the staff looked so depressed. My dad and I were discussing that it looked like they were being forced to work. Service with a smile was not on the menu for the flight. After the 8 hour flight, we arrived in Delhi to catch our connecting flight. If you thought you would get smiles, "please" and "thank you" at Delhi airport, then you got to be kidding. People looked so depressed and emotionless. Another observation was that you have 5 people to check your passport in the distance of 2 metres (perhaps slighly exaggerated!). Makes you think someone thought "How can we reduce unemployment?... I know what... we can get people to sit around the airport doing nothing and get people to flash their passports at the them." Vaheguru!
The plane landed around 10pm and the connecting flight was at 5am to Amritsar. We were asked to collect our luggage and re-check in the luggage for the domestic flight. We collected the luggage and went towards the check-in counter. The Air India guy says, "The flight is now leaving 9am!" (Yes- 4 hours delay!). What we call "delayed" in the UK, Air India calls "not delayed, but re-scheduled!" I explained that aviation law says that customers are compensated for delays, especially 4 hours. The guy was adament that flight is not delayed, but it has been re-scheduled, so we shouldn't complain!
So we check-in our luggage (for a flight that flies in 11 hours time!) and go upstair to complain to the Air India help desk. Sounds easy, you think. You got to be kidding! We got to one desk of Air India and see several people sitting there and chatting amongst themselves. You would think people are being paid to meet their friends and catch up on talk. After disturbing their (non-work related) conversation, they asked (without a smile), "What do you want?" We explained that our flight is delayed by 4 hours and we need an earlier flight. Are they going to help?.... No. "You need to go to the customer service desk at the end." They probably thought, "Thank God! We can carry on with our tea party and chat now."
