I smelled it when we were still several thousand feet up in the air.  It was a medley of hundreds of thousands of outdoor cooking fires, garbage pit fires, warm, humid vegetation just then cooling down from the heat of the day, and pungent incense smoke laced here and there throughout.

I’m guessing I may have even caught my first whiff of Chicken Tikka Masala and Aloo Chili up there, although I doubt I recognized it at that point.

In a word, India.

We taxied up to the gate, and I wondered how this was going to be, getting through a foreign airport, customs, and finally baggage claim.  I had been told New Delhi airport could be a bit confusing. 

But I happened upon a bit of wisdom there on the other side of the world, at one in the morning, their time.  Although that wisdom seemed a bit incongruous, my gut feeling was to go with it.

Just follow the turbans, that bit of wisdom said.

And so I did, much to the dismay of my good wife and sweet daughter.  And not only did I follow them, I started sprinting, just like they were, in an effort to be the first at the top of the line.  My female counterparts weren’t so adventuresome, but I got them to keep up just the same.

Somehow, we hit the expedited customs line, and I looked across the way to see many many turbans looking over at me in a not too kindly way. 

Customs wasn’t a problem, other than the guy wanted to know if the sweet daughter was married, and she couldn’t seem to understand him.  Then her fingerprint didn’t read on the fingerprint machine.  (I think it was because her hands were too clammy or else, I’m suspicious the nice Indian customs man quickly adjusted the sensitivity when he saw a pretty white girl like her coming through.  My fingerprint read just fine.)  But we eventually got it to read, me holding her fingers down harder and the customs agent helpfully showing by touching her fingers also, how to hold them down. 

On to baggage claim.  By now it had been an hour since we had deplaned, but no luggage.  We were standing by the claim that stated our flight number, but I saw lots of turbans by another claim.  I went over there, and viola!, there were a few of our bags, one with the handle completely ripped out and gone.  And finally, all of us, turbans included, found our way back to the original claim to get the last of our bags.

It was there at that claim that my phone rang.  I glanced at the number and wondered why on earth my hedge manager would be calling me at 2 in the morning.  But then it hit me, markets were just closing at home, and he probably needed a decision on something, so I took the call.  When I told him, at the end of the call, that I was talking to him from India, he completely spaced out.  I think we pulled the hedge, if I remember right.

I called Bryce as soon as I had service while taxiing in to tell him we were on the ground.  He had flown into New Delhi and reserved a motel for us all to finish the night out before we flew on to Bagdogra the next afternoon.  He finally answered my call and sounded a wee bit perturbed I had awakened him.  He told me later he had been out like a rock.  I wondered what he thought, being perturbed like that.  Did he expect us to spend the night in the airport whilst he slept in his comfy bed? He said his motel was 7 miles or so from the airport, and that he would soon be on his way; I began to fret that we would have to wait on him. I needn’t have worried; he was the one waiting on us.

We made contact with Bryce again by phone once our bags were collected and he said to look for him by some big pillars.  He said he was as close in as they would let him, but we would still have to walk a distance, and he said to hang on tight to our bags. 

We found the main exit, and were embraced by the throngs of people, all speaking that which I could not understand.  I couldn’t believe the amount of people there.  Hundreds and hundreds, all at two in the morning.  I began to see quite soon that not all were family coming to meet family or friends, but that at least a third of them had other business, and that business in a none too subtle way, was to make money by carrying our bags for us.  Hence the warning from Bryce.  My good wife thinks I got a little too bold and used my elbows a little too freely during that time, but I dunno.  It was either that or we get separated from our bags, each other, or who knows what.  That’s okay, though, heroes don’t always get credit for their heroic deeds, just like I didn’t that night.

It was about then that I had a moment.

We were standing by a large pillar, and there was no sign of Bryce.  A realization began to ooze into my consciousness that, really, I had no proof whatsoever that Bryce was in India.  Sure, I had seen him in his house with other white people, and sure, I had seen some of the countryside roads he traveled.  But, having never been to India myself, and having no clue what it looked like in real life, I realized that it could easily be that Bryce, should he have wanted to, could have played a supreme joke on us.  He could be in Africa or Kazakhstan right now, for all I know, I thought.

And, adding to that moment was something else.  We have traveled some, moderately, I would say.  Airports and their lingo aren’t so strange, be it here in the U.S. or in Europe.  But this airport had no lingo once we left the main exit.  I saw a chain link fence off to one side, but no signs around it, even though people were pressing against it.  Other than that, just people and people, and lots of commotion, smoke, and noise. 

I think Bryce made us go to those pillars for a reason.  I haven’t asked him, but I think it was so he could hide behind the one he was by to spy on us for a while; take in the panic-stricken countenance of his Dad, and the let’s-go-find-him-right-now-even-if-we-have-to-tear-this-whole-place-down look on his Mom’s face. 

It still irks me my good wife saw him first, but that’s okay and probably how it should be.  I heard her shout, “There he is!”, and looked in the direction she was looking.

And there.  Out of the sea of people walked one whom I knew and loved dearly.  He slowly sauntered towards us, lithe and trim, taller, it seemed, than a year ago, and very self-possessed in that milling crowd of humanity.

I stood back a bit and gulped down something that kept clawing at the back of my throat.  I was pretty sure it wasn’t that food that had argued so vociferously earlier on the plane, but whatever it was, was making quite a ruckus of itself as I saw Bryce’s mother fall into his capable arms and then next his sister.  

And then it was my turn. 

It’s amazing what family can do for you at 2 a.m. in the morning in a hot, humid country almost 8,000 miles from home.  Really, I didn’t want to do anything else right then; the journey was over, but I was starting to feel a little tired.

And I hadn’t had a taste of India taxi drivers yet, which everyone needs to have.