The plane ride was absolutely terrifying. My cousin and his brother said it would be so exhilarating, flying in the air like a bird.
Show me the bird that gets strapped into a seat next to 200 other birds and then flies higher than the clouds. What kind of bird would fly through a thunderstorm, get struck by lightning, and then keep on flying like nothing even happened? If there is such a bird, then perhaps we flew like it, but not like any bird I've ever seen.
I looked out the window once and regretted it immediately. There was only water out there! As far as my eyes could see, just water and clouds. People are not meant to fly, period.
It took me nearly an hour to get past customs. They needed to get someone who spoke Hindi, and when they finally did, they questioned me as though I were a state prisoner. My visa was valid, all my paperwork was in order, but always more questions.
Finally, when they knew more about me than my own mother, they let me through with a stern warning not to cause trouble and to leave before my visa expired. It made me think about how the writing on the Statue of Liberty should probably be changed - "Give us your rich" was more like it.
My cousin was waiting for me in the airport next to his full time driver. He was wearing a thick winter coat with fur liner and an expensive suit underneath. The driver, and everyone else waiting in the airport, were similarly dressed.
I had brought only summer clothes, at his suggestion, and wore only a plain cotton shirt and pants.
I gestured to the coat. "Arjun, what's with the coat? You said it was summer time."
Arjun opened his arms in a wide, palms up shurg, "It's supposed to be, but there's an artic chill again. What can I say?"
Nothing helpful apparently. "You could have brought an extra coat."
Arjun frowned and nodded to himself, "True, a thought for next time. Let's go, I have quite a evening planned."
I was exhausted already - having been awake and terrified for the 20 or so hours flying from Mumbai - but there was no talking my cousin down. The driver took my bag and we walked out the automated rotating doors.
Walking into the air outside felt like suddenly being submerged in an icy waterfall. It was so terribly cold that I lost my breath, as if I'd been punched in the chest. I looked at my cousin in a panic, but he just slapped me on the back, tightened his coat and stepped into the backseat of a black towncar. I quickly followed, thankful for the warmth.
"I have an itinerary for our whole evening Ishaan, first we will drop off your things at the hotel..."
I interrupted, still shivering "I need a coat Arjun. Several coats."
Arjun nodded in a haphazard way and continued, "...we will get you a coat, and then we will have the most amazing dinner you've ever eaten to celebrate your arrival."
I was not hungry. I had been sick multiple times on the plane and presently the idea of never eating again was not an offensive one.
Arjun made a phone call to someone, demanding in Hindi that the person on the other end of the call find the warmest men's winter coat possible and bring it to the Four Seasons. Arjun ended the phone call as abruptly as he started it and then turned back towards me.
"So, welcome to Washington DC cousin! I'm so excited you're here. Are you excited?" Arjun shot me the same immature look that usually precursed us both getting into a great deal of trouble when we were children. In contradiction to every bone in my body, I nodded.
The hotel room was unbelievable, I will admit, and for a brief few moments my spirits were lifted. I could even feel my appetite returning, just a little.
An employee of my cousin's arrived and dropped off the most ridiculous parka, the kind an explorer might use on a journey to the North Pole. I disappeared into it like a bundled up infant.
But it did its job and made walking outside tolerable. Arjun was so eager to get to dinner, which apparently we were late for, that he had his driver wait right outside the hotel, disrupting traffic. We raced back to the car, I looking like Earnest Shackleton leading an expedition, and drove at what I can only assume was far above the speed limit to a restaurant called "Bon".
We stepped out of the car and ran into the restaurant, where a man in a suit was waiting, as far as I could tell, for my cousin to arrive. "Good evening Monsieur, your table awaits."
Two men came to take our jackets, the one responsible for my coat eyeing it with confusion as he hefted its weight off my shoulders.
When the Maitre'd saw I was only wearing a cheap cotton t-shirt, he gave me a disdainful look and whistled towards the coat room. A man came out with an ill fitting sports coat and put it on me like I was a department store mannaquin. Then we raced to the table.
My cousin sat eagerly, ordering a pre-fixe menu and a bottle of very expensive wine.
"I don't drink Arjun."
Arjun looked at me as if I slapped him in the face. "Ishaan, today you drink - only today." I gave him an unsure nod, "just a sip?" He asked.
"Sure, alright. I'll have a sip."
I discovered I do not have much of a taste for wine, and perhaps too much of a taste for rich French food. From almost the moment we sat down the food came and never seemed to stop.
Duck liver, chicken skin, roasted vegetables, caviar and butter in prodigious proportions. A lot of new flavors, the rotted cheese in particular was difficult to enjoy, but I ate quite a lot.
When dessert came, I was eager, but incapable. I asked Arjun if we could take it back with us, and he laughed like I was a simpleton and said he would request a box to put the desserts into.
By the time we left, we had not spoken more than a few words together, consumed with the act of eating, and my stomach was rumbling dangerously with indigestion.
In the car, Arjun opened up at last. "I've missed you cousin." He looked out the window, a certain sadness in his gaze "In some ways, I've missed home."
For the first time since getting off the plane, I felt I was talking to my cousin again. Unfortunately, I was also going to be sick. "Stop the car."
"What?"
"Arjun, stop the car, I'm going to be sick."
The car stopped and I raced out, puking in front of a large black gate, still holding the brown paper bag filled with French desserts. In the middle of my fit, I tossed the bag at the black gate in frustration and disgust.
When I finally emptied my stomach completely, feeling better and worse at the same time, I slowly got back into the car. Arjun seemed to be in a major hurry, but I passed out right then and there, completely spent.
Eventually they got me up to the hotel room and left me for the night. I slept forever it felt like and eventually awoke to Arjun in my room.
"You're famous cousin!"
Groggily I grumbled a 'why.'
Arjun turned on the TV to some news station where a broadcaster was talking about something with a big headline underneath him. My cousin translated what he was saying, laughing throughout.
"White House security is looking for this man, seen here vomiting on the White House gate and throwing an unidentified brown paper bag over the fence. The bag is currently being examined by the bomb squad. If you have any information about this man, please call 1800544TIPS."
Then they played a video recording of me puking my guts out at that big black gate, and throwing my creme brulee at the White House in what looked for all the world like righteous anger.
Laying in the horsehair bed of the Four Seasons suite, my cousin laughing uproariously at the foot of the bed, my stomach still a mess from last night, I wished I'd never come on this trip.
Photo Credit
[Public domain or CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](