Attention British Airways and British Airport Authority: Rant to Follow

D.C. Rush Hour is proud to introduce Dr. Lala--a good friend of mine who works for an ABC NGO and who travels. A lot.

This is her report about dealing with flight delays at Heathrow on her way back to her post in Continental Europe. Please note, as you read this, that Dr. Lala's job is to find and implement solutions to complex problems--like how to eradicate measles and improve immunization globally. In other words, she puts a lot of thought into things, and this piece is no exception.

Have you had similar experiences? If you have, you should know that more and more airlines monitor blogs, especially those written by travelers, and many of them respond to complaints they read in the blogosphere.

So, without further ado, here is Dr. Lala and her report to British Airways and the British Airports Authority.

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As a (very) frequent traveller, it was inevitable that one day I would get caught up in an incident of some sort. At least it's not of my own making, this time (knock wood... although I'm still missing one of my bags after 5 days, but I'm having trouble seeing how Ouidad hair products, cheesy Utah DVDs, and my dirty laundry could have been the cause of a security threat... of course, the bag smells a bit musty, but really?)

I'll start with the good news first: my BA flight from LAX to LHR (Heathrow) was delayed by two hours, which meant that I'd been moved from flight BA 730 to BA 732 out of Heathrow. Why is this good news? Well, the unfortunate souls "lucky" enough to board BA 730 apparently also got to spend a happy 8 hours sitting on the tarmac in Heathrow, before being unloaded off the plane (presumably, to, like the rest of us, fend for themselves in finding food, shelter, and toilets, before being able to get out either via Gatwick or the Eurostar... or, if brave and/or stupid, via Heathrow the next day).

I fared better (since, eventually, I got home a mere 12 hours later than planned). I had just comfortably ensconsed myself in the BA Terminal 4 lounge (after enduring Heathrow's ridiculous security procedures, re-screening passengers who had just gotten off of arriving flights - procedures which, by the way, for the 100th time since 9-11, did not catch the pen-knife in my ONE measly carry-on bag, but did gripe over the three tiny tubes of liquids I had leftover from my long-haul amenities kit) when the announcement came over the PA to evacuate Terminal 4. Nobody seemed to be in a huge rush, so I (I note with self-congratulatory smugness) used the potty, grabbed a few diet cokes, and calmy made my way into the main terminal... to discover the most horrible bottlenecked traffic jam ever seen.

At this point in my diatribe/monologue/lecture, I will start to point out the first of the many flaws in the British Airport Authority's (BAA, to be carefully distinguished from BA, which is British Airways) grandiose evacuation plans.

FLAW #1: If you are going to evacuate an airport, you've got to have more than one way out. Otherwise, lock people down where they are (at gates, in lounges, etc) and take them out in a systematic fashion. But crowds milling around, pushing and shoving to get through the funnel... it's not pretty. It leaves everybody unhappy and stressed out. EVERYBODY. And think about the poor people with kids, who were having trouble not LOSING their kids in the pressured mass of humanity.

FLAW #2: Um, you know that people in Terminal 4 haven't been through Immigration, right, since it's a transit terminal for international flights? You do remember this? So letting all these people just loose in the parking lot...where many of them made their way, no questions asked, to the trains, easily paying cash for a ticket to Central London, with no records of their ever having entered the UK? I'm just sayin'... if I were a terrorist mastermind (which I am not), and I wanted to get a bunch of my people into the UK without any records, lesson learned - just have one of them drop a bag somewhere in Terminal 4 and watch the chaos ensue.

Now, we all figured out that they were possibly looking for somebody as we exited... the funnel approach to the exit, plus the fact that you had to walk a gauntlet of 15 security guys with machine guns to get out who all gave you "the stare", and that they let us out in small groups of 20 so they could peer more intensely, was a giveaway. You'd think they might've checked boarding passes and passports as we left...but no. Didn't happen.

So then, there you are, outside. And they are trying (with very limited staff) to herd everybody onto the 4-story parking structure. The 4-story, unsecured parking structure. The 4-story, unsecured parking structure, that we don't know if it can take all that weight. Good plan!

FLAW #3: So, again, let's pretend I'm a terrorist mastermind. (I'M NOT, OK?). Hmmm... not only have I managed to disrupt air traffic across Europe (actually, probably worldwide), but now, the authorities have (MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA) nicely herded the thousands of people scattered over the W-I-D-E expanse of the 25 gates at Terminal 4 (it can take 30 minutes to get from one of that terminal to the other), into a 4-story structure that has the footprint of a football stadium. And has no security. So all my victims are nicely positioned for the BIG car bomb that can be set off by remote control (as opposed to a little tiny thing I might be able to get into a bag and sneak past airport authorities but probably can't get too far away from). Nice. Really Nice. Thanks guys!

(Needless to say, I kind of stayed on the airport side of the bridge of the parking structure for quite some time, to see if my theory was going to play out. I was aware, however, that I'm probably several IQ points ahead of the average terrorist, and they might not have plotted
this one out).

So everybody's milling around outside Terminal 4 at the Departures level. Nobody is saying anything. At some point, they start forcing everybody who wasn't already on the parking structure over there. They call back the flight crews. It starts to rain. People are getting tired/thirsty/hungry/wet/needing toilets. They hand out (some) plastic rain covers (but I never got one...I just saw other people with them). It starts to hail. They announce that everybody should head for level 3 of the parking (which is covered) but provide no instructions on HOW THE HELL TO GET DOWN TO LEVEL THREE. (It wasn't obvious, especially since the line for the stairs and elevators was clearly at least 45 minutes long).

FLAW #4: If you are going to consider evacuating the airport a valid control measure, HAVE A PLAN, PEOPLE. It was abundantly clear there was none. There were no megaphones; no real attempts to get people information. Total lack of coordination! And it would be SO EASY!!!

Let me explain: (1) Have a box outside the airport with megaphones and whiteboards and sticks in it, plus walkie-talkies. (Markers, too, since I need to be explicit here). (2) Have all airport and flight crews automatically report to the location of the box in the event of an evacuation. (3) Use the staff, the whiteboards, the megaphones, to organize the evacuated passengers by flight and/or destination. This has several merits: (a) people are less likely to be anxious if they feel some semblance of a plan and that somebody is thinking; (b) when you have to start bringing passengers back in, you can bring them in by flights and get planes off the ground faster instead of having to wait for all the passengers to get back inside...plus, you'll know who has given up because they can tell their group leader, so the flights don't have to wait for them; (c) If (as was the case on 3 July) a decision is made, even before re-opening the airport to cancel flights, the passengers can be informed as soon as possible, and taken over to other terminals at Heathrow to make alternate arrangements, reducing the strain on the (limited) remaining services at Terminal 4. But all of this is apparently too logical for BA or BAA.

Because what happened to me? Well, during the hailstorm, I made my way over to the third floor. From the view that I ended up with, I realized (they had not told us this) that Arrivals was still open. So I made my way down there, waded through the morass of people, found the BA Arrivals lounge (closed, of course, because the BA lounge staff from the Departures level of course, would not think that maybe they should open it up??? Hello?), but also found a plug... where I was able to charge my cell phone... and called the BA Service Center in Switzerland. Where, they were able to tell me that they had known - for hours already - that all European flights in or out of Terminal 4 were cancelled. (This, they told me at the same time that the PA systems was announcing that they were still securing the Departures level and that passengers would be informed about their flight status only AFTER that was completed. Can we say "lying through your teeth?"). I got rebooked out of Gatwick - I had to take the train to Terminal 3 and shell out $40 for a bus ticket over to Gatwick, but I eventually got there.

The flight from Gatwick to Continental Europe was late, and there was no meal service (they had to hurry to make it to my European city before the airport there closed for the night). I got there, and filed my bag claim. That was Tuesday. One of my bags made it home by Wednesday
night, but they never told me ("Airport policy is to not contact the passenger until ALL bags have arrived"). I finally called Saturday and found out my one bag was there (a bit pilfered!) and went to retrieve it. Bag #2 is apparently somewhere at Heathrow, and they cannot tell me when to expect if (if ever).

So what's the moral of my lessons?

(1) THERE IS NO PLAN. The airports have no idea what to do in a real emergency.

(2) If you have to transit through Heathrow, bring warm clothes, food, socks, a charged cell phone, and the phone numbers of your travel agent and the airline service centers.

Oh, and you wanted to know what caused all this hubbub? I don't really know. While at the airport, I heard different stories - one is that a guy ran off with his bag at security control, when they wanted to search it, and it took a while for the (intimidated) guard to inform a supervisor, and by then the guy was loose in the airport (and may have boarded a flight). A second story is that somebody dropped a bag somewhere in Terminal 4 and they wanted to find the guy (this doesn't entirely wash... shutting down an entire Terminal because of a suspect bag? Just take the bag and blow the thing up). A third story is that there was a bomb (again, unbelievable... they would've evacuated people much faster).

The real story? We probably won't ever know. My personal opinion? The whole thing happened because of poorly trained, poorly educated security staff, and a lack of a plan for how to deal with incidents. Ultimately, people's characters are far more important than what they managed to have with them in their bags. Haven't any of these guys ever watched MacGyver?

Day 30: Ruswa or Ada?

Today's blog features a guest writer, my sister. I asked her to write up a piece about the 1981 and 2006 Indian film adaptations of Mirza Muhammad Hadi's Umrao Jaan. Without further ado, DC Rush Hour is pleased to bring you Ruswa or Ada? by Janeen Kincaid.


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On November 5, 2006, you may have seen a post on this blog titled Coochie Coochie Coo. This was Janet’s post about humoring me and going with me to see Muzaffir Ali’s 1981 motion picture Umrao Jaan, starring Rekha in the lead role, at the Freer Gallery of Art.

A few weeks later, Janet once again humored me by going to see J.P. Dutta’s 2006 version of Umrao Jaan starring two of my favorite Indian actors: Aishwarya Rai as Umrao Jaan and Abhishek Bachchan as Nawab Sultan. After the movie, I asked Janet what she thought and she said, “I liked both for different reasons. But I’ll tell you what, you write up a review of the two movies and I'll post it on my blog.”

As you can see, that was exactly one month ago; I have been telling her on almost a daily basis that I was working on the entry. Truth be told, I have been procrastinating this entry for several reasons. First, I am not a movie critic. Second, I do not have a whole lot of respect for movie critics; I believe that 99% of the time they completely miss the mark. And, third, I think I watch movies from a different perspective than most people. Perhaps I will be proven wrong today.

I believe that the best actors/actresses are the ones who identify strongly with the characters they choose to play. I believe that a part of who the actor/actress is in their private life comes through in the parts they play. There is no exception in my mind with the two actresses that have played the part of Umrao Jaan. Do not misinterpret my meaning, though: I would never say that Rehka (Umrao Jaan, 1981; photo above) or Aishwarya Rai (Umrao Jaan, 2006) are courtesans, because they are not. But they both understand the constant search for happiness and recognition Umrao Jaan went through.

In an article in Rediff, journalist Suhash K. Jha quoted the following about an interview that he was granted with Rehka in September 2001:

“I don’t think anyone knows the real Rekha. Not even Rekha herself. There’s this constant exploration of the ‘real Rekha’ that goes on between the actress and her hand-chosen journalist friends. Too bad I’m not one of them.

“The one interview that I did with her was, according to her, a failure. ‘He didn’t understand me,’ she told a mutual friend later.’

“Now I realize what she meant. To Rekha, her mask is both a protecting shield and a tragic face of stardom. She wants it on, but she also wants it peeled off, so she would feel like herself again.”

This is exactly what Rekha captured in her portrayal of Umrao Jaan as Muzaffir Ali interpreted the story. Umrao started out as the kidnapped child Ameeran sold to a Kotha(1) by her kidnappers. Being too young to understand the full impact of what has happened to her, Ameeran becomes accustomed to her surroundings and the luxury that is placed in her grasp and faithfully works toward the goal of being a successful courtesan. She never completely forgets Ameeran while being trained to be Umrao Jaan, the courtesan of Lucknow. Umrao gained the title Jaan as soon as she lost her virginity to her first paying customer. Umrao Jaan was a mask placed on Ameeran.

Throughout her life as a courtesan, all Umrao Jaan wanted was to be loved and cared for by one man. She held onto the dreams of the girl Ameeran, while facing her world as Umrao Jaan. In my mind, only a person who understands what it means to wear a mask that hides the real self could portray the same type of character on screen. Rekha learned early in her career to put on a mask to protect her real self from the harsh realities of life in the movie industry.

I loved Rekha’s portrayal of Umrao Jaan; it was raw and full of emotion. She captures the essence of lost innocence—a lose caused by the selfish choices of others. All you have to do is watch the last song sequence in this movie to see how powerful her performance is. As she dances and sings the song Yeh Kya Jagah Hain, (loosely translated “what is this place, friends?”), she is questioning her existence both as Ameeran and Umrao Jaan, but more importantly as a woman in 19th Century India. To see the strength and beauty of Rekha’s performance, you must watch the film. You can find the movie on Netflix.

I don’t know if I have adequately described Rekha’s performance, but I enjoyed the experience so much that I purchased a copy of the movie on DVD as soon as I could. Janet can tell you that there are very few movies in my collection that I do not like, but even fewer that I list under the category of “must watch.” This one makes it into that category.

Happiness plays hide-n-seek with me.
I don’t know who’s hiding, and who’s seeking,
But we’re old friends…

—Aishwarya Rai about herself (August 2002)

If anyone could play the part of a woman searching for happiness it is Aishwarya Rai (photo at left.) She fits into the J.P. Dutta interpretation of Umrao Jaan, because she lives two lives: her public life and her private life.

From the very beginning, Mr. Dutta has spoken of his interpretation in terms of how Ameeran lives her life. Dutta’s movie is seen from the perspective of Ameeran remembering her family and life in Faizabad prior to her kidnapping. Even remembering her life, Ameeran is just a child who does not understand that she could have obtained her freedom from the life of a prostitute by running away from the Kotha. Instead she says, “I was born unlucky. The buffetings of fate and chance left me stranded in a wilderness. There was no way out except the path of evil.”(2) Umrao Jaan was a public figure and Ameeran was a private figure; throughout all of it, Umrao Jaan longed for the life that Ameeran would have had had she not been kidnapped.

In this version of Umrao Jaan, the public figure Umrao falls in love through the heart of the private figure Ameeran. She gives her whole heart to the man she loves, with a pure hope that she will find lifelong happiness. Umrao actually knew from the beginning that her love was doomed. She once told Nawab Sultan: “after everything, you will remain a Nawab. And me, even after being faithful…will always remain a courtesan.”(3) Unfortunately, Ameeran learns that love will betray the most loyal hearts. She finds herself left alone and broken hearted because her soul mate listened to the lies of another concerning the public figure Umrao. Her soul mate ignored the knowledge he had of the private Ameeran, that she was faithful and loyal. Although he professed his love for her, deep down Nawab Sultan had allowed the name Umrao Jaan to overshadow the beauty and grace of Ameeran, who loved him with her whole heart.

This version of Umrao Jaan was quite powerful. Aishwarya Rai gave a performance full of rich layers of emotion, which are not necessarily seen with one viewing of the movie. Once again, as soon as the movie was available on DVD I purchased a copy. It currently resides on the shelf next to the 1981 version of the movie within the category “must see.”

If you decide to watch these movies, I would make one suggestion: Do not compare them to each other as they are two different interpretations. And above all, do not compare the performances of the actresses; it would be an insult to their individual talents and performance styles.

I understand better now why Mirza Muhammad Hadi took the pen name Ruswa, and gave Umrao the poetess the pen name Ada. Perhaps Mirza Muhammad Hadi, as a man, recognized that it was a disgrace (Ruswa) to sell a woman into the flesh trade for she is after all someone’s daughter. But even he recognized that Umrao Jaan endeavored to live her life with grace, poise, and dignity (Ada) after having her heart completely broken by the men who came into and left her life.

I enjoyed both films for this reason alone: Rekha and Aishwarya Rai are both women who live their lives with grace, poise, and dignity—and infuse the characters that they play on screen with the same qualities. They have both shown women the world over that girls and women have the power to choose freedom over oppression at the hands of others.

1. A Kotha was a ‘high class’ brothel in 19th century Lucknow, India. The Kotha’s of this time were known for courtesans who were highly educated and quite talented in the art form of the Ghazal a form of Urdu poetry. The royal families sent their sons to the Kotha’s as part of their formal education.
2. Ruswa, Mirza Muhammad Hadi, The Courtesan of Lucknow: Umrao Jan Ada. Translated by Khushwant Singh, Orient Paperbacks, 2007.
3. Umrao Jaan, J.P. Dutta, Director. Distributed by Adlabs Films Limited, 2006.