A JOURNEY TO GREECE

I was the third one in the queue. Ahead was Athens, the crucible of western civilisation, Greek gods and goddesses, the home of Olympics, the progenitors of virtually every school of thought. Ahead also was a surly Greek, no way a God, who finally started to see some light. Five Indians had just crossed into the country. He himself had just let in two. He lifted his eyes and dropped his jaws.

For, dutifully lined behind me were 17 other black and brown faces in dishevelled attire, clutching Indian passports and looking forward to a week of pure gas. One of India's top five agencies had decided to treat its top 20 managers at a Greek retreat and thus the presence of the Indian contingent. The Greek God was joined by an equally surly lady. All of a sudden it looked like a veil had dropped.

The muggy weather outside looked muggier. Angry whispers flitted back and forth.

"Passport" barked the man. "All".

The language, tone, manner had changed.

Suddenly, all 17 Indians felt very Indian. Foreign. Outsiders. Defined by the colour of their skin. And nationality.

"Why you here?", he demanded.

"Conference", we said in chorus.

All the division leaders with their huge designations were beginning to feel like little children.

"Where invitation?" The man shouted again.

"No invitation. We invited ourselves," the brightest of creative sparks chirped.

Three overweight immigration officials appeared and gestured the motley bunch of by now very rattled Indians into a narrow corridor. I looked into a small room on the right as we passed it. From international pulp fiction, the identity of the men perched diffidently on wooden benches was quite clear: International flotsam waiting for deportation or worse, unless they could pull off whatever scam they had going.

The unruly, upset, shaken team of India's finest and brightest were marched schoolchildren-like into a bright hall with rows of chairs. In good Indian fashion, traits perhaps accentuated by the profession they were in, all began to mill around like penned sheep. Cigarettes and lighters worked feverishly to reduce the stress.

The tension was exploded by the agitated entry of a bulldozing official, shouting, screaming, roaring in rage. Much waving of hands and gesticulation later, it was clear that the restless movements were keeping him from counting heads and tallying them with the number of passports he held. By now our Indian contingent was getting edgy as they muttered their way to seats. Yet another explosion ensued. Apparently, he wanted each and every one to sit in the same row. By the end of the shuffling, it was quite clear to the exasperated, angry, cowed down, hurt, offended Indians why numerals are Roman and language is Greek.

With much dark humour, we settled in waiting for the next chapter. The sterile cold Emirates air hospitality at that very moment looked warm and hospitable. On the runway, the aircraft began to turn tail and plod off to take-off point, a development welcomed by a muffled chorus about getting the plane to hang on.

In the meantime, of course, the Indians were not inactive. In good Indian fashion, one of the members entrusted with the travel arrangements disappeared in a huddle with the Greek officials. Ten minutes became 20 and then half an hour. Suddenly, there was a flurry and the same dour Greeks returned brandishing the passports and shooing us out of Immigration. Obviously, someone had found a very Indian solution.

The muttering gang trooped out swearing loyalty to motherland or castigating it for being seen as such scum that "even Greeks misbehaved".

The next four days, however, did much to change all that: Greeks, were just like Indians. Ramming their cars into each other and getting down to fight it out; angry women and men; crowded thoroughfares; a lovely sense of being in Lajpat Nagar; crummy dilapidated streets, much like the by-lanes of Calcutta with incongruous Bengali signages; Indians by the dozens in the flee market.

Perhaps what did set Greece apart was that there weren't as many Indians you were bumping into as you did in virtually every major metropolis of the world. And the wine was delightful; the service familiarly Indian in being obnoxious; the hotel rooms quite, quite underclass; the girls pretty; the streets fairly full of peddlers and kiosks. Once you figured it was an India without Indians, was that much more enjoyable!