Thursday, May 17: The Arrival

Of course all the Business Elite nonsense doesn't mean very much during the flight and once you have landed it is destructive to keep that kind of thing in your mind - even in jest.

Dr. Paul (remember him? He's the evangelist who I am here to observe) and I prepare to disembark from the plane. We look like anything but a world-class evangelist and a … a … middle aged political columnist.

I look like a middle aged man who has just gotten off three airplanes and about 20 hours of flight time. He is wearing a golf shirt and jeans, an he has pulled a Caterpillar Tractor baseball cap low over his eyes.

He tells me he is concerned about being identified at the Mombai airport.

"Wait. What?" I raced after him

"I do not like to be seen away from my people."

"Wait. Why aren't your people here?"

"We will find the others and we will go to the hotel."

I am suddenly pining for the good old days when contracting some dread tropical disease was my greatest concern.

"Who are these guys, we're meeting?" I ask.

"Pastors from Tennessee," he says.

"How many?"

"Eight. I think."

"Have you ever met them?"

"No. But God will send them to us."

"Wonderful. I hope He can pick them out of this crowd. Which way?"

"I don't know where the bus is supposed to meet us."

We are now exiting the terminal. There are three billion people lining the walkway behind a metal barrier, shouting and carrying signs, mostly say "Hooray for our side." No, I made that up. That was a line from an old Buffalo Springfield song. But they making a lot of noise and waving signs to identify drivers to passengers. None say, "Dr. K.A. Paul," Much less "Rich Galen."

There are a lot of people and it is very hot and very humid and I am with a guy who is afraid of being assassinated and we don't know who we are supposed to meet or where we are supposed to meet them.

We walk into the parking lot and I get my first introduction to "Driving, Indian Style." Briefly, this involves going anywhere you want, at any speed you can, and honking your horn. I was crossing from one side of the driving lane to the other when some guy in a car that sounded and smelled like it was propelled by a 1957 Briggs & Stratton lawn mower engine came around a corner, honked his horn, and made no attempt at avoiding me.

As I leaped out of the way, he signified that India was Number One. The international signal for "Vatch Ver You Are Going Buddy."

Which was my first introduction to "Pedestrian Survival, Indian Style." This involves not just looking left and right (or, right and left as Indians - another tiresome leftover of the Haj - drive vehicles with the steering wheel on the right while staying on the left hand side of the road) but looking in a 360 degree arc AT ALL TIMES because all manner of people who don't speak English are in motorized vehicles, intent on doing you grievous bodily harm.

After about 20 minutes of wandering around with Dr. Paul refusing to leave without knowing the fate of the pastors we stroll back along the bus line and, 30 yards down the sidewalk, we see the bus with a sign for the hotel at which we will overnight and we get on.

The usual greetings were augmented by major praises to God (which was my first introduction to being around southern preachers for four straight days). One of the Tennessee Eight allowed as to how he had passed Dr. Paul but thought he was a beggar from the way he was dressed.

Introductions all around, and we headed off to the hotel, which was about 15 minutes away on the grounds of the domestic airport in Mombai.

This was the first glimpse of an underdeveloped country by most of the Tennessee Eight. They are appalled at the traffic, the noise, the heat, and the squalor. And this is just during the ride to the hotel.

Toto, we're not in Johnson City anymore.

We reach the hotel in good order, shortly after midnight, check in and hit the sack with instructions to be in the lobby at 6:45 the next morning to catch the seven o'clock shuttle.

According to my body it … Never mind. I sense you are not sympathetic.

Friday, May 18: Onward Travel

At the appointed time the Tennessee Eight and I met in the lobby and waited for Dr. Paul. Dr. Paul showed up at 7:05 - 20 minutes late. We later realized that, on "Dr. Paul time," this was actually well ahead of schedule. The first of many group shots, followed by a loading up of the baggage on a shuttle and we were off to the airport.

Most of the pastors had not been out of the United States, much less to a less-developed country like India. They are way over-packed and the baggage takes up three of the eight seats on the shuttle. We are still in an "its an adventure" mood so with good nature we pack in for the three minute trip to the terminal.

There is a rule in group management which goes like this: In moving a group, every extra person adds to the complexity by the square of the new total. So moving three people (3 times 3 = 9) is two and a quarter times more complex than moving two people (2 times 2 = 4). Moving four people (16) is FOUR times more difficult than moving the original two. And so on. We have ten people. You do the math.

If this rule doesn't exist; it should.

The flight from Mombai to Hyderabad - I have been pronouncing Hyderabad: High-DEER-uh-bad, but the locals pronounce it HIGH-dra-bahd - is scheduled to leave at 8:00 am and is a one hour flight. I am not in Business Elite on the Jet Airways flight, but I AM on an aisle which is a good thing because Jet Airways has apparently adopted a cost saving measure of not turning on the air conditioning while on the ground. I board the plane at 7:40.

We learn another lesson: It's not "Dr. Paul time"so much as it is India time. We finally get rolling at about 8:30 and, when we become airborne, the air conditioning comes on cooling the plane.

This was not a pleasant experience.

We land at Hyderabad and I get my first glimpse of the attraction of Dr. K.A. Paul to the Indians. As we walk off the plane, soldiers greet him with the palms-together-under-the-chin, short bow movement. As the ten of us (the Tennessee Eight, Dr. Paul, and me) walk we collect more and more people. By the time we reach the baggage claim area there are probably 50 people around him.

He and the pastors are taken into a VIP waiting room which immediately becomes overcrowded and they begin to hold a prayer session. As I am not interested in either, I head outside to get a taxi to our hotel.

I have to argue with Dr. Paul's people who insist I cannot do this alone. They put me into one of the cars which is waiting for us and tell me the driver will take me "in two minutes."

"Do you think I was BORN two minutes ago?" I ask. Not that it does any good as almost no one speaks English.

I wait patiently for exactly two minutes then tap the driver on the shoulder and tell him to drive on. He puts the SUV in gear and begins to pull out. The front passenger door and the rear door fly open and two men dive in. Obviously, I am NOT going anywhere without someone keeping an eye on me.

Probably a good plan. Even in the People's Republic of Alexandria.

The hotel is called the "Ramada Hotel Manohar." It is not a five star hotel. My room is not a three star room. I go back downstairs and ask what the room rate is.

"2,400 rupees," I am told. "Including breakfast."

I do the calculation. 2400 times 2 = 4800 divided by 100 = $48 dollars per night.

"How much for a suite?" I ask. I am told only a junior suite is available at 4,000 rupees per night but also includes either lunch or dinner in the hotel restaurant. $80 a night. I take it.

It is now about 11:00 on Friday morning and I am in a panic about how I am going to get Mullings out. I have a huge time zone advantage (11 am Friday morning in Hyderabad is one-something on Friday morning on the East Coast. If I can get this thing on the internet by, say, four in the afternoon that will work.

It takes until about 2:30, but it's out.

Even though Hyderabad is one of the major information technology centers in India, the Ramada has not yet caught up. The phones in the rooms are not the type which have a modular plug. They are hard wired.

I go to the business center and inform them I was going to need an internet connection for a couple of hours.

They tell me, with some chagrin, that this will be very expensive.

"How much?"

"100 rupees per hour plus a ten percent surcharge."

"110 rupees per hour, total?"

"Yes, sir," very apologetically.

I do the arithmetic. $2.20. Done.

I camp out on the one computer which has dial-out service to the internet and, after a number of fits and starts, send the column.

I take a nap until 5:30 then rise and change for the first of three "Rallies" at which Dr. Paul will be preaching. The pastors are along because Dr. Paul knows many of their colleagues who want him to do a rally in Tennessee later this year. The Pastors are the independent observers.

Dr. Paul is a little nervous about the attendance because the local officials had originally granted permission to use the large polo grounds, then had rescinded the permission, then had granted it again, but only a week ago.

Since that time Dr. Paul's organization "The Global Peace Initiative" has been working around the clock getting ads placed in the local language newspapers, putting posters on telephone polls, contacting Christian churches, and then putting together the event itself.

He is concerned that only about 3,000 people will be there.

"Still more than the three people in the phone booth," I tell him to cheer him up. He is not cheered.

Dr. K.A. Paul is a dark complected, diminutive man with piercing black eyes. He is edgy, not his normal positive self.

The Tennessee Eight and I pile into a van and head off toward the polo grounds. Seven of them are professional pastors and a good deal of their conversation involves the technical aspects of how they run their churches, what time services start, do they have one Sunday service or two, and so on.

The eighth is a young man, 19-years-old, who is the son of one of the preachers. He has completed his associate degree in theology and is joining his dad's ministry.

There is no talk of baseball, or football, little talk about politics (except they are big Bush fans and had little use for Clinton). They all talk about religion. All the time.

Except for when they're talking about food and drink. That conversation centers around how best to avoid ingesting the little bugs we are all trying to leave behind when we go.

Someone must have told them that a typical trick is for hotels and restaurants to fill bottles of "mineral water" with simple tap water and screw the top back on.

Each one carefully inspects the top of each bottle, each time, each day to make certain color holding the screw top on is connected.

"You know," I say, "I just saw a movie on the plane where some people in a small town in New England just filled Evian bottles with tap water and used cigarette lighters to re-seal the caps."

From that point on the inspections included checking the little tabs on the collar watching for evidence of such chicanery.

They have talked to all the same people I have talked to and have heard all the same warnings.

Malaria medications are compared. I am the only one on Malarone which is a once-a-day pill regimen. The others are on a sequence of one pill a week before arrival. One pill during the stay. And one pill the week following.

I see they are jealous of a medication which would give them a sense of security each and every day, but there is no way to change now.

We pull up to the polo grounds for the first of three rallies and I am blown over. There are at least 25,000 people spreading from one end (of what would be the polo field if there were either horses or grass) to the other.

This IS more than three people. And, I have found out, they don't have phone booths here.

Here is the lead from the next morning's English-language newspaper:

"It was a celebration as well as solemnity as thousands of people turned up at the Bison Polo Grounds to hear the mesmerizing evangelist Dr. K.A. Paul and his message of peace on Friday."

The Tennessee Eight and I sat on the stage with a bunch of dignitaries including a number of politicians. In any democracy, 25,000 people will draw politicians.

This was a huge deal. This is like a very large political event on the eve of an election. There are sound towers, light towers, security, signage, and lots and lots of people.

I watched as a 400 voice children's choir sang, as Dr. Paul preached (alternating with a man who translated his English words into the local dialect, Telugu), watched as he had people raise one hand to Christ, then two hands, as he had them stand, then sit, as he had them clap, and repeat his prayers.

As I have had limited experience watching these things live (although like everyone else I watched Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggert on TV when they did their mea culpas) I asked the Tennessee Eight what they thought.

They thought: Excellent.

I am very happy for Dr. Paul.

Coming Wednesday: We travel into the countryside and I tell Jesus if he gets me though this, we should talk.