ABSTRACT
It was springtime 1978. I lay on the ratty-carpeted floor of the New Delhi Airport in India, leaning against my instrument cases and bags, hungry and thirsty. I was supposed to be in Tehran, Iran, performing that evening in a symphonic concert, conducting the orchestra, as well as playing my instruments from around the world. Instead, I was stuck in No Man’s Land, the nickname given to the isolated room in the New Delhi Airport where travelers whose connecting flights were canceled or delayed for more than twenty-four hours were housed and not allowed to leave the airport since they had no visa for India (my case). All of us were crowded together with suspected drug dealers, people with no visas or passports at all, people whose flights had been delayed, and criminals arrested in the airport who were waiting to be extradited. I made a small desk out of my instrument cases, sat on the floor, and began writing music.
