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January 3, 2003
Tackling Murphy at the Airport
For those not well-acquainted with Murphy’s Law, let me explain that this is a term humorously given to, as Oxford Dictionary puts it, “various aphoristic expressions (maxims) of the apparent perverseness and unreasonableness of things”. To put it simply, it means that if something can go wrong or be misinterpreted, it will.
Most probably it originated in the US military and became a maxim asserting that wherever there is a bolt to be turned, someone will be there to turn it the wrong way. In the educational cartoons put out by the US Navy, Murphy figures as a careless, clumsy mechanic who is prone to installing a propeller backwards, or keep on pushing doors marked pull.
So many things can go wrong when traveling, but nothing would match the anguish you have to go through if you run into a Murphy at the airport check-in counter, as I did once. He would simply not issue you a boarding ticket if the list of passengers he is looking at is for a different flight and your name obviously does not figure there. You may show him the fax you have received from the air company confirming your seat, you may argue that you have OK written against the flight number on your ticket. But, to no avail as long as Murphy is behind the counter.
Murphy would, however, be very polite, concerned and accommodating, as he was trained to be. He offers to put you immediately on the flight to Timbuktu. How about your baggage already checked in earlier? It could land where you intend to go by the flight which Murphy is ensuring that you miss, or it might reach Timbuktu where Murphy intends to send you! Where is Timbuktu anyway?
Can you deal with Murphy, make him see reason and issue you a boarding pass for your flight? Sure, you can. To be able to achieve this feat, you have to memorize only three words of Indonesian language: saya, hari, and biasa.
These words made it possible for me to get by in the first few days of my arrival in Jakarta on posting there in mid-fifties. Educated Indonesian those days spoke Dutch, and the percentage of those who had even a smattering of English was next to negligible. I noticed that almost all Pakistanis in our embassy there had acquired fluency in Indonesian. The only exception was my stenographer. He gave me a list of ten words, which were zero to nine in that language and just one sentence: Saya hari hari biasa.
On my query, he said he didn’t know what the sentence meant. But, he maintained: “It has served me well for the past two years and it ought to do the same for you. You have to learn the words for counting as you will be required to give the phone number in local language to the operator, self-dialing is not yet available here. The other type of contact with the local people will be when you go out for buying your groceries. You select the item you want and look at the vendor as if asking for its price. It is irrelevant what he says, you just make up your mind as to how much you think should be the reasonable price and utter that followed by Saya hari hari biasa. He would not say a thing and would accept your price. This sentence would work like a mantra, a charm. It has for me and it should for you”.
It did indeed. But, after using it two, three times, I started feeling uncomfortable uttering the sentence, as it appeared to leave the grocery-man no choice. I had to find out what it meant. Embassy translator told me that it meant: “I give the same every day”.
That sounds quite innocuous; what makes the man readily accept your price, I asked.
In our society, he explained, it is considered very impolite to challenge the statement of a respectable person.
You may use this mantra in tackling the Murphy at the airline counter. The mantra will work only if you acquire, through practice, a fluency in uttering these words in different sequences while maintaining an innocent, confused and cooperative countenance. This is how the scenario is likely to develop.
Murphy: “I am sorry, Mr. X, our computer doesn’t show your reservation. I am afraid you will have to wait for another flight.”
You: “Saya hari hari biasa”
Murphy: “What?”
You: “Biasa hari hari saya”
Murphy: “Would you please speak a little louder and slower, there is a lot of noise here”.
You: “Hari hari biasa saya”.
Murphy to a colleague: “Hi, Tom, you speak Chinese. This guy here doesn’t look like a Chinese but he appears to be speaking Chinese or Tibetan. Would you tell him that the computer doesn’t show ....”
You: “Saya biasa hari...”
Murphy: “Hari biasa your mother. Here, give me your ticket. Get on the damn plane and go visit all the loony biasas of your family. I’ll bump someone who knows what the heck I am talking about. Here is your boarding pass.”
You: “Saya hari hari hari biasa biasa” (Bend your head several times and exit)
Murphy: “Biasa welcome, you nut. Next biasanger please - I mean passenger please.”
Passengers from South Asia are more likely to run into another kind of Murphy at the US airports these days. He is the Security man disoriented by the plethora of instructions from above and by the tendentious propaganda of a section of the media.
Since Osama Ben Ladin, himself an outstanding Murphy for masterminding an exceptionally counter-productive 9/11, sported a flowing beard, any bearded brown person is his follower if not a relation and therefore a suspect for our Murphy in security uniform at the airport. If he subjects a Sikh, a Sardarji, to a discomforting search for flaunting a beard and turban, one has to attribute it to his childlike ignorance of Sikhism. A few Sardarji were even killed in the wake of 9/11 for the unpardonable sin of bearing some resemblance to Osama!
How would you regard the bunch of INS men of Los Angeles - the bureaucratic zealots - who put in handcuffs hundreds of Iranians for significant or insignificant infractions of immigration rules? Since a case has been filed by some civil rights setups in a court of law against the excesses of INS officials and the issue is thus sub judice, one has to suppress the temptation of placing the functionaries into the category of our man at the airport.
Life will indeed be insipid and colorless without a Murphy, without a McArthy, despite the temporary discomfort he might cause. The famous British poet and thinker, Alexander Pope, justified the anguish inherent in the scheme of things by contending, “It is the right divine of kings to govern wrong.” A Chinese proverb advises the wisdom of reconciliation : “When rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Arifhussaini@hotmail.com
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