Off The Cuff: A wry look at life

Holidays are usually a stressful time for me, not because of the supposedly stringent security check at airports, or the inevitable delay in take offs, or the terrible in-flight meals, but because of the packing involved.

Indians apparently have never heard of the expression, travel light. If you notice the perks offered by airlines to Indian expats, it is not the extra space to stretch your legs, or the wonderful cutlery, or the latest in-flight movies. The airline that offers the most space for their luggage, usually wins.

"Air Whatever now offers passengers more free baggage," reads the report in newspapers and I can imagine pilots struggling to get the massive airliners off the ground in airports around the world, from wherever Indians are going back home.

Just to be objective, I think Egyptians are even more baggage crazy. During the Haj, right in the blistering heat of Makkah, I found this woman, not immersed in prayers, but struggling through the streets with the biggest bag I had ever seen in my life. I think by the time she got that to her tent, it was time to move on to Muzdalifa.

A week before departure time, the wife would go to downtown Batha in Riyadh and pick the largest suitcase you can find this side of Suez. It looked like the perfect prop for a serial killer who was getting rid of his crime. And I am sure it was a nightmare for the customs officials who wouldn't know where to begin to rummage through.

The behemoth would be opened in the living room and days would pass as we filled it with essentials that we had to take home.Meanwhile, the kids would lie in the suitcase and pretend they are Dracula. By the time we finished, the day of departure would arrive.

"Ok, one, two, three," I would say, and try to lift the thing, but it would stay glued to the carpet like it was nailed down.

From here onwards we would leave in our wake sorry souls whose backs will never be the same again. The unsuspecting first guy would be the unfortunate houseboy who would grunt and get a rictus of a smile on his face whenever our vacation time arrived. Then taxi drivers, fathers-in-law, porters, all would fall prey to our baggage.

The story does not end once we reach our destination and unpack. When we return after the most hectic 30 days of my life, the staff at the check-in counter would look at us in disbelief.

Usually, since we are such proactive people, who act, and don't react, we ask the wife's parents to wait at the airport, and when after all the begging and pleading with the airline staff does not help, we unpack things and hand them to over to the parents to take back home.

The first things to be debagged then would of course be my stuff, not plastic bags of spices, which smell like a hermit gone crazy in the jungle. We also would bring back things like homeopathic medicines for lumbago or some weird ailment, which the customs guys at Riyadh would cheerfully dump in the garbage.

Pickles, which would go the same way, and finally the magazines with all the "no-no" pictures, which would be taken away, supposedly to be destroyed.

After all this packing and unpacking, I usually require a week to recuperate and I vow never to go on my vacations again. But strangely enough, my wife brings out a list of presents for her third cousin form her mother's side. "Let's start early this year," she says cheerfully.

When we migrated to Canada, we took a container with us, the stuff from which took me a year to get rid of surreptitiously.