While doing flying spanner work in "South Asia" we were issued with jackets with the gold bars on the sleeves. We didn't get a big hat or a big watch though...
In Delhi, our flight switched from International to domestic with a night charter service from Delhi to Bombay using a domestic operator's ticketing and cabin crew. On the first trip I was taken off the aircraft and through Immigration/Customs then round to the Domestic Terminal to re-board. There I became the rope in a kind of tug-o-war with the company rep hanging onto one sleeve and pulling me in and a Policeman hanging onto the other and pulling me out. The flashy uniform with gold bars didn't impress him at all - he refused to believe I was crew on a domestic flight because I was a European. I refused to get off the aircraft thereafter and stayed aboard all the way, through Delhi to Bombay and back through Delhi to Kathmandu.