My luggage was lost and the Madras airport. The clerk at Air India accused me of not properly tagging my suitcase at the check-in counter when I was in Mumbai . I nicely advised the clerk the tags were properly attached and clearly marked with the destination of Madras. After filling out the proper forms and stressing out about that my stay in Madra was a brief one before I travelled on to Indonesia , I reluctantly made my way out of the airport past crowds of brightly dressed families carrying huge suitcases and boarded a group limo which will take us to our Hotels.

A couple of tour-mates urge me to use ‘positive energy.’ Was I that obviously stressed? Another said my suitcase had probably been stolen. I should call the police. Then a woman whom I barely understood, offered to lend me her clothes. Nice gesture, but she was half my height. Upon arrival at the Hotel Madras , I excused myself from the group, threw myself on the bed. Almost at once there began a series of lucid dreams . Dreams that made me think I was back in Paris with my tagged suitcase. One dream, I was walking rapidly through what appeared to be a maze were kids hassled me pleading for cash and candy. That was perplexing to me in the dream how Paris seemed just like India. At least, I thought, that didn’t stop tourist from coming to Paris. I then push my way past families with enormous suitcases and boxes and chickens. A lady wearing gold ornaments and vivid green saris that never came loose even when they soothed their loud crying babies. Smartly dressed men were ordering about the rambunctious children to get back in line, and they did!

I awoke the next morning with a message on my hotel phone from Srini, our tour leader, saying that I need to return to Madras airport and claim my suitcase. Just in time, I thought, and breathed a sigh of relief. And a weird sensation that when I step out of my hotel to hail a taxi to take me back to the airport that I just might run into a street that has a hint of the Eiffel Tower amid the chaos of motorized rickshaws , buses and taxis with squeaking brakes bent on knocking over anything in or out of sight.

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