On 23rd April it was the day to bid farewell to us from the island of Java. Even today when I came to the hotel lobby for tea at 6 in the morning, the same girl, full of smile, was welcoming the guests standing at yesterday's place for tea. Today we had to catch a plane from Jakarta to New Delhi. I had brought Deepa with me. He shook hands with Deepa.
I left Deepa with her and went for tea. Meanwhile, Vijay also came there. We asked the young man standing at the reception counter about the free cab service provided by the hotel to the airport. He told that there are two services - at seven in the morning and at eight in the morning. Book now where you want to go. By this time it was half past six. We booked a 7 o'clock cab. In just thirty-five minutes we all got ready and came downstairs. The cab was waiting for us. Jakarta Airport is only two kilometers from Hotel Pop. He dropped us at the International Terminal at around 7.20 pm.
At Jakarta Air Port
Our flight was at 11.30. It was Indonesia Air Asia's international flight which was supposed to drop us to Kuala Lumpur and from there we had to take another flight to New Delhi. On reaching the airport, the first thing we did was to change the currency. The Indonesian currency kept in our pocket was not going to be of any use going forward. We took dollars at a counter by paying Indonesian currency because if we tried to get Indian currency we would have to pay more. Dollars can be converted into Indian Rupees at easy rates in India. Adopting this process of currency exchange saves a lot. We thought of having breakfast in the waiting room outside before boarding at the airport as it would have taken at least two hours if we had started the process of going inside. Madhu and Bhanu had not even had tea in the morning and neither had Deepa had milk.
Jakarta Air Port
It is a very large air port, quite clean and well equipped with modern computerized equipment. Air services in Jakarta started from AD 1928. Due to the old airport being small, a new airport was built in AD 1985. It is called Sukarno Hatta International Airport. It is the seventh highest air connectivity airport in the world and is connected by the Jakarta-Singapore air route which is one of the busiest air routes in the world. This airport handles 3.70 lakh air flights annually in which 587 million passengers travel around the world and 3.42 lakh metric tons of cargo are carried. After having breakfast and drinking tea we started the boarding formalities which took about 2 hours. Also got some time to rest at the terminal. Our flight left Jakarta at exactly 11.30 am. It was our farewell not only from Jakarta but also from Java and Indonesia. When we landed at Kuala Lumpur airport, our clocks were 2:30 in the afternoon. With the time of Kuala Lumpur being one hour ahead of Jakarta, the journey actually took us two hours, not three. Kulala Lumpur Airport is also as glittering and luxurious as Jakarta Airport. The next flight from here was to meet at 7.00 pm Malaysian time. So we spent this time looking at the airport.
The whole scene turned upside down
We decided to take some fruits here, but after hearing the price, the enthusiasm to buy fruits kept going. Till now we were used to using Rupee at the rate of 200 Indonesian Rupee for 1 Indian Rupee but here we had to buy 15 Indian Rupees at the rate of 1 Malaysian Rupee which is called Ringgit. A normal size Indian apple at Kuala Lumpur airport was six ringgit or one and a half dollars or ninety Indian rupees whereas in India we get it for 20 to 25 Indian rupees. The tea was much cheaper than this. We got a cup of tea for 75 Indian rupees. There was a strange smell all around here. We surmised that it must have come out of the boiling of fish and prawns. So the tea was able to get down under the circle with great difficulty.
Deepa's hunger
Soon it was 7 in the evening and we got a flight to New Delhi. The plane started flying over the seas again. It was supposed to reach Delhi at 10.30 am but this flight was actually going to take us five and a half hours. After an hour Deepa started crying. For about an hour, an attempt was made to seduce him with laddoos, mathris, khakhras, biscuits etc. Bhanu made her milk with milk powder but she did not keep quiet. Finally Vijay decides to get a box of boiled rice from the airhostess. Deepa was happy seeing the rice.
Here Deepa was eating rice and there in the dark sky, our airplane was flying over the seas at a speed of one thousand kilometers per hour, about thirty thousand feet above the earth. Know how many seas, how many islands, how many countries and so many people who were not visible to us but they were all there and the airplane was flying at full speed through them. I thought, amidst these darkness, these seas and these distances, different cultures laugh and smile. I was remembering that those poor Hindus of Bali island, who do not have cows, do not have Ganges, do not have rivers of milk and ghee, are fast lagging behind. Wheat is not there, yet they love all these things because they take pride in calling themselves Hindu and fighting for thousands of years to keep this feeling alive but no culture in the world They do not care at all for this feeling, not even India living in the country of cow, Ganga and wheat.
We go to see the Hindus of the island of Bali like an exhibition of the things kept in the museum and come back to our country and get busy with our own life again. Who knows how long the Hindus of Bali will be able to keep this struggle alive! I also asked this question to myself because when the Hindus of Java, who lived in the shadow of Hinduism for thousands of years, adopting Islam and guessing the idol of Shri Krishna to be 'Ghat Kach', then we come to know that they have come to Bali. How much sympathy is there for the Hindus of the island.