India, June 21 -- It is 2022. I am in the queue at the immigration section in Mumbai airport, holding my passport with a crisp boarding-pass neatly tucked in it. Even though I have made many such trips, the act of playing it cool stays like a muscle memory. I have a fellow traveller who got his passport made especially for this trip. So, he is a bit nervous. Two counters are vacant, and we occupy these. The immigration officer looks like a strict 1990s dad about to check your report card. I throw in a bit of English to assure the officer I haven't sold my ancestral land to fund this trip and never return. The drama is at the other counter.

"So, where are you traveling?" the officer asks my friend, even though the boarding pass mentions t...