Another day another airport

If you think by now that I've written enough airport stories, you are probably right

20:00
Bangalore

I left my sister's house to catch a 10 PM flight to Chennai. My nephew volunteered to drop me at the airport in his bike. I agreed, thinking about all the times that I used to take him for rides in my bike when he was a little tyke. Now, here he was a twenty year old engineering college student with a bike and all. I looked at the mirror on the way out, the wrinkles around my eyes were beginning to show.

After a quick bike ride, which involved a lot of twists turns and racing through the pothole ridden roads of Bangalore, I managed to reach the airport without screaming for help. The reason I couldn't scream for help was that it would really have been uncool, especially in front of my nephew and I wasn't ready for that kind of a reality check as yet, though it was true that things surely have changed.

I walked into the airport and the first thing I noticed was that there were way too many people there than normal. I walked over to the Air Sahara counter. My intuition was right, my flight like most flights had been delayed by atleast 3 hours. I ask around with other airliners, all of them were running at 3-5 hour delays too. This was courtesy the dense fog in Delhi that AM which had had a cascading effect all day. Great!

I get a boarding pass, buy a Woody Allen novel (Without Feathers) and find an empty chair in the waiting lounge. After a bit of reading, I get bored and started looking around at my fellow passengers, in the same situation, stuck at the airport. After a while, I realised that each person or each event has a small story to tell. So this is a collection of them that I started noting down.

Shweta Come Here- Then Intrepid traveler.

The first fellow passenger I encountered was all of 2 feet tall and about 2 years old. It was easy to find out her name, which was either 'Shweta Don't Go There' or 'Shweta Come Here', which is what her Mother yelled her every so often. She never really answered to either of these names as she was caught up in a little world of her own. This little doll with an easy smile walked around, exploring the rows and rows of chairs filled with tired passengers. You could see that she was thrilled to bits.

Almost everyone brightened up when she walked down their row with her squeaky shoes. She never let anyone stop her from her quest, which was usually a walk to another row of chairs. She eventually decided that she would take a dekko at the book stall which had a huge full length display windows. She walked past the window, very slowly, leaning on the glass and staring at the books, lost in a world of her own. Some of the titles she browsed were, 'The Seven Habits of Effective People', The 86 degree solution', 'The!nk', 'Nuts!' and she spent quite a long time in front of 'The Historian' & 'The Da Vinci Code'.

It really was plain to see that the world had another thriller freak.


The Teenager & her Mom

Slightly ahead and facing me were this teenager and her mom. The teen was continuously on her cellphone messaging someone or the other. The mom would start a conversation and the teen would be messaging as she spoke. The Mom would try and peek at what the teen would pull away. This went on for awhile. One could see the worry lines on the Mom visible deepen. After awhile the teen gets up to use the washroom. The Mom slowly reached into the teen's bag and took out the teen's cellphone. Quickly the Mom goes through all the SMS's, frowns at a few, smiles at a few and then slips the phone back inside the bag before the teen came back.

By the time the teen is back the Mom is looking around casually with her arms folded with a look of someone who desperately wants the world to know that she was not upto anything sneaky. I think she just stopping short of whistling a nervous tune. This reminded me of a poster of Dennis the Menace, which my Mom gifted my sister a long time ago, there was a caption that read "You can fool some people sometime but you can't fool Mom".

Keeper of the broken chairs

To my right sat a smart middle aged gentleman reading the latest Outlook Magazine. There was a row of seats behind him were empty, a rarity in a crowded airport, so this attracted quite a number of passengers looking to take a load off their feet. Everytime someone would venture out to this row, this kind gentleman would point out to them that the chairs (linked together) were broken and it was dangerous to sit on them. He must have warned more than a few dozen people during the course of the night. My respect for him grew with every passing warning he gave to people, ensuring that no one sat on the broken row of chairs. He waved at a few airport officials to take care of the chairs but they were too busy with their jobs on this hectic night.

Now the kind man could have just as easily found another chair somewhere else to continue reading his magazine in peace but he chose to stay there. Says something about the man.

Real heroes seldom wear tights.

The Narcissist

A nervous guy sitting in front of me kept fiddling with his laptop. So I slowly leaned over to see what he was doing. I found him adjusting his picture which he had selected as the wallpaper on the laptop. After many adjustments, he was finally comfortable with his effort, which was a blow up of his face up to cover the entire screen. Very disturbing. More disturbing was the way he stared at his face for a real long time.

He then proceeded to put on some music on his laptop. Now the speaker in the laptop wasn't that effective, so he would put on a song, minimize the window to reveal the photograph of his big head, give it a look, then semi close the laptop, put it in the bag with the bag open and then lean on the bag. He did this song after song, some songs (like one from Ashique Banaya Apne) were played thrice.

This boy would need a shrink very soon.

A true Indian Wifey

A few rows ahead of the narcissist, sat a trendily dressed young couple (looked newly married). He looked like a pencil and she, well she was something else, gorgeous would be an understatement. He would read a book, she would peek in, finish the page before he did and wait for him to turn the page. She would talk animatedly, he would nod vaguely looking somewhere in space. He streches his arm, banging it on the arm of the chair, she rushes over to that side and massages his arm for half an hour (I kid you not). She talks nineteen to a dozen and he looks around. She puts her head on his shoulder and he shrugs it off not so gently. She goes back to talking and he goes back to staring in space.

And they tell me marriage is a fun thing. Ha!

Funny Heads

Ever see a man who has wrinkles all over his head like a bull dog?
Ever see a man wear a toupee that looks like a dead bandicoot (and probably smells like it too)?
Ever seen a man wear a pink hat (and a yellow shirt, ofcourse)?

I saw all three within 20 minutes of each other.

Attitude

As I was about to catch a snooze a pretty girl walked towards me and sits across the aisle from me. She wore a tight brown leather trousers and also a rather tight black t-shirt that read 'Keep Staring, I just might do a trick', right across her bosum. She had a look in her eye that would have frozen a Volcano.

Would go and tell her that her leather trouser was ripped on the side?

I wouldn't. (She would have slapped me if I had pointed to her thigh)


This isn't right!

James Frey's "Million Little Pieces" has started climbing up the popularity chart in India now. Now, after it has achieved infamy. Bookstores like 'Sankars' at airports have started putting these books in their 'Bestsellers' & 'Recommended Reading' shelves over the last few weeks. These books also have the 'Oprah Book Club' recommendation on them. This goes to show that there is nothing like bad publicity.

The Apple Pie

At midnight with all the airport shops closed, I walked out of the airport into the cold Bangalore night to find something to eat. Since I was wearing a t-shirt I was shivering in the cold wind as I made my way to a Coffee Day, outlet in the middle of the parking lot. As I looked hungrily at the counter, I spied a large apple pie. One of my main weaknesses. I must have given it very longing looks because the guy behind the counter asked me if I wanted a piece of the pie. He said he would heat it for me too. I think i almost purred!

After heating the pie, he turned back to me to ask me if I wanted a scoop of vanilla ice cream on that, words were stuck to my throat, I merely nodded.

There I was shivering in the cold night air, gobbling a piece of the pie with a scoop of ice cream, smiling happily into the dark night.

I think perfection just found itself another metaphor.

(After 5 1/2 hours in the airport, I boarded the flight at 2 am for the routine 30 minute journey back to Chennai)