Flying with the 'shanti-shanti' crowd

I usually take the Thursday evening overnight flight from Mumbai to Tel Aviv at the end of my India trips.  However this time I was able to wrap up earlier in the week and return by the Monday evening overnight flight.

One would think that these two El Al flights - identical in time, duration and designation number - would be indistinguishable from one another.

One would be wrong.

The Thursday night El Al flight is filled with tired business travelers, many of whom arrived in India the same week on the Sunday night flight heading east.  I've come to recognize many of the 'regulars' on these two flights, and I've come to expect a quiet, commuter-like experience where the lights go out and everyone is asleep within minutes of the dinner and drink carts being locked back into their niches in the galley

However, the Monday evening overnight El Al flight from Mumbai to Tel Aviv is nothing like that.  Apparently this is the flight that the young Israeli back-packer set takes home at the end of their multi-months-long post army sojourns in India.  

They converge on the Mumbai airport from the mountains in the north of India... from the beaches of Goa... from any of the many ashrams that cater to the young Israelis who seek to recapture an inner peace/youth that was taken from them during their stressful army stints.

They arrive at the airport from their far-flung adventures attired uniformly (in their attempted non-conformity) in baggy cotton pants, sandals, loose tank tops and scarves, with their long unkempt hair (men and women alike) arranged in dreads or ponytails (kookoos) and wrapped in colorful cotton kerchiefs.  Strangely, they all seem to have lost or discarded their undergarments somewhere during their travels.

Most of these young travelers have expended their very last financial resources in reaching the airport, and the pre-boarding lounge is a hectic scene of pooling crumpled ten Rupee bills (worth about 20 U.S. cents each) to procure and share much needed nourishment and chai.  The musky scent of unwashed bodies in the lounge is augmented by the strong tang of 'burnt vegetation'; an indication that other resources were likely pooled and expended just prior to entering the airport.  Waste not, want not, I suppose.

When I described this crowd/scene to my family over breakfast yesterday, my teen-aged daughter nodded knowingly and said, "Oh, you mean the 'shanti-shanti' crowd", as if I should have known this term already.

'Shanti', it turns out, is the Sanskrit word for peace. It is often used in chanting and meditation, but it has apparently been informally absorbed into the Hebrew lexicon by the younger set as a short-hand description of anyone/anything affecting a mellow, peaceful and vaguely eastern manner and/or dress.

Once I had this working definition, I could see how my daughter had so easily pigeon-holed my fellow travelers.

Anyway, rather than going to sleep after the meal service had finished, the 'shanti-shanti' crowd began roving the plane in gregarious groups, reconnecting with friends, comparing travel stories and chasing down the harried flight attendants for any left-over meals and drinks.  Had I not been so tired it would have been mildly amusing to see many of them pretending to have forgotten the correct Hebrew words for things and 'casually' substituting the saffron and curry-flavored vocabulary they had studiously collected in their travels.

Luckily I had remembered to bring both my ear plugs and eye shades... and most important, had taken a couple of Benadryl tablets right before the flight (better by far than any of the prescription sleep aids for achieving maximum drowsiness with minimum risk of adverse interaction with the in-flight beverage service).

My last recollection of the flight was of a scruffy young couple making out noisily to my left, and a small group of what my generation would have called 'hippies' reminiscing loudly and exchanging email address over top of my head.  The next thing I was aware of was the soft kiss of the plane's wheels on the runway in Israel and the inevitable applause of the grateful Israelis; unabashedly happy to be home at last.

Note to self:  The Monday evening overnight El AL flight from Mumbai to Tel Aviv is only to be taken as a last resort.