Nolan on the road: travel travails

I took off dark and early this morning from Mumbai to head to New Delhi for the conference. I caught a 7 am flight on the cleverly named Jet Airways. Another common airline here is called Sahara, which has the same relation to travel in India, I guess, that Southwest Airlines does to travel on the East Coast of the US.

Jet was the first airline I've flown on that plays easy listening music on takeoff and landing. It will either ease your mind from crash fears, or get you so pissed off you can't focus on being scared.

Much of the ink in the Indian media these days is devoted to debunking Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's new biography, and pointing out that he is a grandiose, self-absorbed liar, and also a Pakistani. I'm not qualified to assess the factual counterclaims on both sides, but any issue involving India and Pakistan here seems to operate on about the same intellectual level as an argument between Yankees and Mets fans.

Jet Airway's in-flight magazine was HUGE. I mistook for a manual for flying the plane. Not surprisingly, it was filled with mawkish crap, like all in-flight magazines.

Secondary India news is a recent outbreak of dengue in the country, particularly in Delhi. That can't help the country's tourism effort much. Suggested spin: "India: Moving past Malaria Every Day."