I waltzed into the airport, with my stuff at half eight, not realising that there would be a formal procedure for carrying relief internationally-  meaning a letter from the government. At the Indigo checkin, I was asked the same question for the umpteenth time. “Are you from an Ngo?” “Nope, I just have very generous friends”, I replied. It wasn’t a lie. During the Kashmir Floods as well as this time around , I just needed to inform my classmates and they arranged for as much material as I could possibly carry. 

The girl at the check in-Ankita, just didn’t know what to do. She called her superior. The man who turned up, turned out to be a really kind soul. He asked me a couple of routine questions, I showed him some of my work from the Kashmir Floods and he gave me the green signal. Jaspreet, allowed me to carry a hundred and thirty seven kgs of excess baggage without charging me a penny.

It was such a tedious task for both Anikta and him, they spent more than half an hour trying to sort out my affairs. They further gave me a reference in Nepal, just in case I got into trouble with the authorities.

Today, as I arrived  another earthquake rocked Nepal. There was utter chaos at the airport. But despite that: whether it was arranging extra trolleys, loading the stuff or locating porters for me, my co passengers  helped me with everything. The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me.

Though, they did open up a few cartons, the Nepalese authorities, on their part, let me breeze through with a warning.”You will not be able to do this alone without a local contact. Try to go through an organisation.” “I’ll manage”, I replied.

I’ll see what to do. Tomorrow is another day.

P.S- Thank you Bineeta Grover, Mrs Grover, Shruti Chabbra, Mrs Chabbra, Ankita, Jaspreet and Indigo Airline.