Rediff on the NeT: Flight delay, customs hold-up, missing baggage.... Typical Indian welcome for Yanni

Flight delay, customs hold-up, missing baggage.... Typical Indian welcome for Yanni

Suparn Verma at New Delhi airport

His flight was delayed by 16 hours, his girlfriend was detained by the customs and her baggage could not be found. When he finally wandered into New Delhi airport, composer Yanni Chryssomallis was hauled off to the custom collector's office where he spend two hours chatting up customs officials. Even the 90 tired security men deployed about the exits had dwindled to 12. But Yanni could still sign autographs, chuckling at the thought that he too had lost his luggage when he last came to India. True grit, that’s Yanni for you.

He had intended to rush to his chartered flight to Agra and prepare for his concert. But girlfriend Linda Evans -- the actress best known for her role in Dynasty -- was detained over some trouble with her papers. No real trouble, says S K Jain of the Foreign Regional Registration Office, who settled the matter somewhere between the ministry of external affairs and the ministry of home affairs. "It could be due to the fact that someone else had a similar name," said Jain, not very clearly.

But Evans had also lost a piece of baggage, which took an hour to find. This being her first visit to India, Yanni, who showed no signs of fatigue, kept the bewildered Evans up with events while downing cups of tea and signing autographs for airport officials.

Yanni didn’t know it then but his management had a tough time outside keeping the tow trucks away from the Mercedes and Honda meant for his entourage.

He stepped out of the airport to be surrounded by a horde of newspersons who had been hovering around the exits since 0300 hours IST. "I'm terribly, terribly excited to be here, I simply cannot describe it in words," the Greek composer said. He turned on the security personnel who were trying to push photographers away. "Let them shoot. It’s okay. Let them shoot," he said. Evans wasn’t interested, though.

He had made a flamboyant entry into the Honda when an organiser called out, "Yanni, that’s not your car. You’re in the Mercedes." Yanni discovered he wasn’t and promptly made the required switch.

Yanni began rehearsals with his 47-member orchestra on Monday at the Taj with full lights and sound. He is spending the first two days monitoring the sound and light from the control tower. On Wednesday he will perform on stage at the final rehearsal. Photographers will be allowed in then. They will be banned from the actual concerts.

George Veras, the seven-time Emmy winner who will direct the show, gushed, "Imagine a fully lit Taj Mahal and Yanni's music. It will be nothing short of magic. Sure beats anything we have ever done." He was, of course, forgetting that he too made it through the Indian customs.

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