A Slice of Georgia in the Big Apple

NEW YORK--I have a problem with traveling. Well, not traveling itself. I love traveling. It's the process that seems to trip me up. I've gone to the wrong airports, had my luggage arrive late, had my luggage sent to other places (specifically Nebraska) and been told that my seat on the plane did not exist. It's the running joke in my family: The Harvard kid can't even make it to the airport. Har-dee-har-har.

So it came as no surprise that my flight home for the weekend last Friday was the latest in the "Can Vasant Make The Plane?" saga. A phone call to Delta Airlines made sure of that. "Flight 1029 from Newark, New Jersey to Atlanta, Georgia," the agonizingly slow voice said, "has been cancelled." I called again and got a seat for an earlier flight. Good, I thought, no problems so far. Then, right before I was about to leave work, my Mom's voice appeared in my head, saying, "Call before you go to the airport!" Again I slowly, reluctantly dialed Delta. "Flight 1179 has been cancelled," the voice said.

For an automated voice it was unusually cold and cruel, I thought, grumbling as I called Delta again. I talked to the same person, who took some heat from me, but fortunately he had another flight. After checking the records, he said that the only other flight in the New York-New Jersey area departed in two hours from John F. Kennedy International Airport. "Oh, and I'm sure you'll be unhappy about this," he began. Oh no, I thought. The last seat on the plane!

"But I've got you a first class seat," he finished. "How does that sou--" CLICK. In a matter of seconds I was on my way to the apartment. I had 90 minutes to make the flight. I hailed a cab.

"Where are you going?" the driver asked with a heavy foreign accent. When I told him, the cab driver flashed a grim smile. "It will take you a while." I suddenly realized that 5 p.m. Friday was not the best time to try to get to the airport from the heart of Manhattan. "Get me there as fast as you can," I said anxiously.

That was a mistake. We began on 35th and Madison. Twenty minutes later, we were again on 35th and Madison. We had gone in a circle. Desperation began to set in. To divert me from my worries, the cabbie decided to start a conversation.

"So, young man, where are you from?" he asked. In my experience, when immigrant cab drivers ask that question, they want to know your nationality--usually, that of your parents. Usually I mumble something about India, but for some idiotic reason I said "Georgia." "Really?" he said, now interested. I thought he was going to mention John Rocker. "From the former Soviet Union?"

Stop. I could have explained that Georgia was also a state in the Union. But I was not in the mood. Plus, I wanted to see where this would go. "Yes," I said. "Where are you from?" "Azerbaijan," he said excitedly. Now we were mostly out of the traffic, and any pretensions of a speed limit had been exceeded. It would have been nice for him to keep an eye on the road, but his homeland was evidently more important. But it was getting late, and I once again expressed my concern.

"Young man," he said in a tone reminiscent of something in an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie, "I will make you a deal" (You know, when the stereotypical evil Arab agrees to let the brave American Arnold go if he works for him and not the CIA). Intrigued, I listened. "I will get you to the airport, and you pay me $30," he said. "Flat rate, no questions." Needlessly melodramatic, I thought, but I said yes to the very good rate. It occurred to me that there were other connections than Harvard ones.

So we chatted about the Nagorno region. He took me through the part of Queens which was predominantly Georgian and recommended several restaurants. We talked about his children. I don't know how we got to the airport with 10 minutes to spare, but we did. Most of the ride had alternated between watching us fly by buildings and cars and Fran Drescher look-alikes and conversing with my excited cab driver. But what I thought would be a worrisome-as-usual trip turned out to be quite interesting. And a first-class seat on the way home? I think I can handle a few bumps in the schedule.

Vasant M. Kamath '02, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Winthrop House. He wanted to write about why Hillary Rodham Clinton should be kicked out of New York, but the National Review took his idea.