We had a 7:15 am flight that connected in London (without an overnight stop this time) and continued on to Boston. We scheduled a hotel shuttle to Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. It is a 40-minute drive, but we were advised to depart at 4:00. I thought that was earlier than necessary.

The night before, we were out somewhat late having a farewell dinner and drinks with our hosts. Meanwhile, our company travel agent, Jane had sent an email notifying us that the flight was delayed to 8:30. I checked the flight on the British Airways website and found that it was further delayed until 9:04. I thought this would have bought us two hours more to sleep.

I called the front desk with the intent of changing our pickup time to 6:00, but the fellow on the other end strongly advised that I keep the original time because sometimes, despite a posted delay, these flights can actually depart on time. He said that if it departed late as noted, we would just have more time to spend at the airport. He didn’t seem to factor sleep into the consideration, at least not with the same emphasis I did. I let it be and resigned myself to getting a 3-hour nap that night.

We arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before our scheduled departure time, and we got through the relatively lax security and customs thresholds quickly. The flight was listed as having an estimated departure time of 8:30, so we then had three hours to kill in the airport. To the credit of the hotel employee I spoke to earlier though, the time did change back from the once-posted 9:04 to 8:30.

My companions watched me as I ate a moderately lousy but filling breakfast of idly and vada from a 24-hour coffee stand.

Also, I was intent on spending this idle time napping in the airport, so I was excited to find these lounge chairs.

None of my companions were interested in joining me there – they sat at some garden variety chairs that were right in front of our departure gate. I sometimes find it hard to comprehend their disinterest in food and sleep.

I got arguably the best nap I’ve ever had in an airport. At a certain point around 6:30, the place transformed into a more lively atmosphere, and some airport employee was calling out non-stop announcements that were paging one person after another. It seemed as though I were sitting right under or possibly inside the nearest announcement speaker.

When I woke up, this young lad appeared in the seat two down from mine.

I greeted my companions and asked how they passed the time. Brandon said he was browsing through a bookstore, finding some on Hindu mythology. I mentioned that I had brought along the Bhagavad-Gita (thanks to Em pulling it off her bookshelf right before she drove me and Coryndon to the airport). Brandon replied with something to the effect of, “yeah, I couldn’t get into that. It’s all poetic and not prosaic enough for me to follow.”

This launched Coryndon and Brandon into a discussion on whether it was appropriate to use the word “prosaic” that way and, if not, what would be the appropriate adjective form of the word “prose”, i.e. “having the literal stylistic form of prose”. After all, it is appropriate to describe a piece of text as literally “poetic”. But “prosaic” generally means “dull and ordinary”… Brandon got his face knifed and probably contracted hepatitis B (the one condition for which he skipped the recommended vaccination) in the brawl that ensued.

I steered clear of said brawl and looked up “prosaic” in the dictionary.