A couple of weeks back I took a flight out of Mangalore to Bangalore. Right through the cab ride to the airport from the city, the monk-like driver maintained a stoic silence, as if he had sworn to his mother that he would not speak to me at all. That was fine with me because I was still groggy. As we neared the airport and had the full view of the sloping sides of the hillock on which the airport sat, I was very comfortable in the cocoon of my taxi - until the silence was shattered by the driver, who obviously had decided to communicate! His right hand shot out of the window as he pointed out a slope and said something in Tulu - he assumed I knew the language. I didnt but the words `plane accident' were good enough pointers and I was jolted up; he was pointing in the general direction of the slope down which the Air India plane tumbled in flames some 2 weeks earlier. There was no trace of the accident or any remnants of the plane but I could recall all those horrid pictures beamed across TV screens for a few days. I wished the driver had continued his `mute' status and had not broken me into this significant piece of information just before I was myself taking a flight. But then, the damage was done and the driver relapsed into the state advocated by his mother, with a satisfied expression on his face.
I stumbled out of the taxi into the airport, still hassled by the single sentence the driver had spoken during the entire journey and the reaction that it had evoked in me. But that did not last long. The first person I saw when I got into the airport was a foreign woman, wearing a T-Shirt screaming `Math is for uglies. I dont do math'. Well, she should have! If that dictum was right, she would have done well. I wondered why people sport T- shirts with slogans which either dont fit in with their personalities or just dont make any sense at all. May be, they have never read what is on the T.Shirt.
While I was checking in I specifically asked the girl at the counter whether I could carry my shaving razor on board. She checked and told me it was okay. But as I was going through Security, the personnel there behaved as if I was trying to smuggle a Uzi in my hand bag. I was made to open the bag and 3 people converged on it to inspect the heavy artillery I had concealed in my shaving kit. I asked them what the issue was and with the brusqueness that is typical of airport security people who have identified a `problem passenger', one said `please open the shaving kit, sir'. I did and he pulled out the Mach 3 razor stem and the blade, with a gleeful smile as if he has had his prized catch for the day. He called out to his superior (this worthy's moustache was an inch longer, so I presume it was his superior; or it could be that he is the specialist with razor blades!), who pompously got up after he froze the monitor in its current position and lumbered up to me. All the four microscopically analysed the razor; the one who joined the group last kept looking up from the bag at my face as if my visage was a montage of swiftly changing pictures and he did not want to miss any clue! Then, he said to the others in Malayalam (nowadays nothing prepares you for the specific language you will encounter in an airport Security) that what they deduced was right and they should go ahead. Now, I was all the more puzzled. Even as I was wondering whether I was going to be jailed for carrying the razor, one of them peremptorily ordered me to move to one side and turned around to rummage a drawer close-by for some implement. He brought a note book out, asked for my boarding pass, entered the details on that and asked me to sign. The notation read `9Wxxx-Seq No.26-Razor blade'. I am still trying to figure out what really happened there! If that was the high-point of the Mangalore Airport Security personnel's life on that day, phew - what can I say??
Mangalore airport lounge has the capacity to hold about 100 passengers, waiting to board flights. The airlines and the airport authorities, in their infinite wisdom, had decided that about 30 minutes would be adequate buffer between two flights and accordingly just as one set of people move out of the lounge towards the aircraft, another set begins moving in. But, as it happened that day, two flights were delayed by over an hour and the lounge was already choc-a-bloc. So, there was some intense scrutiny at the boarding pass while one got into the lounge area, just to ensure that you were on the next flight out. You could have got admission into the parliament a little more easily. I managed to squeeze myself into one of the three seats strategically located between the coffee vendor and the water dispenser. Obviously liquids were flowing generously all around and some of it splashed on to the seats closeby. The other two seats were taken by a gentleman in white dhoti and shirt and his wife in a Kanjeevaram After a few minutes, the wife expressed her desire to get a cup of coffee, after wondering whether it was as good as what she made at home. The gentleman must have thought that this was a good opportunity to pass subtle judgement on the quality of coffee at home, for he promptly procured coffee in a paper cup and handed that over to the wife. The coffee vendors at airports do not pretend to be adept at matching the heat of the liquid to the ability of the paper cup to contain the same. While the transfer from the vendor to the husband and to the wife thereon took place swiftly, the wife had no one to transfer to, since she was the ultimate user. Now, she was stuck with a very hot paper cup, which she juggled from one hand to the other for 10 seconds before muttering under her breath to the husband `what the hell have you done?? How am I supposed to hold this??'. Husbands, as a species, do not have the genius to resolve such problems quickly, so this one just looked at the wife bemusedly and blinked a few times. So, the wife barked at him -no longer under the breath - to get another paper cup, even as she looked for a place to park the scalding offender. But the airport authorities would rather have provided another seat for a harried passenger than space for a paper cup, as you know. So, she continued to juggle, a couple of drops of coffee splashing on to her Kanjeevaram, evoking a suitable amount of horror in her expression. At this juncture, the husband returned with a pathetic look on his face, which screamed 'no extra paper cup'!! He explained or tried to (the repeated movement of the jaw up and down was the indication, a la Robert in Everybody Loves Raymond), that extra cups are not freely doled out by the vendor. But before he had finished, the lady was at the coffee vendor's throat in a flash. I think that guy got what he deserved. After a very concise dose of dignified shouting, the lady returned to her seat with not one but two extra cups. She pleasantly asked her husband whether he wanted to have a sip!! Her way of driving home the point, I guess. All the husband could do was to turn to the vendor and glare at him in disgust!
While we sat in the lounge, I heard an announcement that an Air India flight from Dubai has been diverted to Cochin because of bad weather at Mangalore airport. I was aghast because exactly at that moment, a Jet Airways flight from Bombay was landing and moving towards the terminal. And then a Kingfisher flight from Bangalore. Now, why was it that what was good for the goose was not good for the gander? Obviously Air India was being economical with truth and this `we-do-not-land-unless-the-weather-is-perfect' posturing seemed like an excuse for some subterfuge. A few Air India passengers with high energy and low IQ levels (this, you would agree, is a deadly combination) promptly started the usual yelling session, without any specific audience in mind. But Air India personnel have perfected the art of handling such situations over the years and they did very well by being conspicuously absent from the scene. While this commotion was on, two other flights announced their departure and just flew away!! Just at this moment, the announcer came on and said Air India regretted that they could not even give a time of arrival for the diverted flight because the weather continued to be bad in Mangalore airport. Instantly, the decibal level of the yelling exercise went up by a few notches, still without anyone paying any attention. It has been over two weeks after my departure from that airport and I hope the Air India passengers have since left!!
Cut over to another airport, another time. This was a week back, on our way from Madras to New York, at the Brussels airport. Those who have flown Jet Airways in this segment would have noticed that Brussels airport, during this stop-over, has a very strong resemblance in parts to an Indian airport or at least Singapore/Kuala Lumpur/Colombo. The reason for this is that six Jet Airways flights from India and North America (moving in the opposite direction) land at Brussels at the same time and for about 3 hours, the airport has around 1500 Indians recreating the `home' ambience on alien shores!! At any point during this time, one can throw a brick in any general direction and hit about 10 Indians. The consequence of this should also be clear. We, Indians, have our own way of travelling and using transit time/space and nowhere else is this more evident than in Brussels. During the transit security check, one could hear some 20 different languages being spoken, still some basic instructions from the Security pesonnel being misunderstood or ignored/flouted totally. Queues with Indians take their own shapes and sometimes branches are formed organically even as the main trunk struggles to stay in some form of control. Here, space for 4 queues were visible and but I could count some 7 different lines having formed. Belgian authorities, I guess, have started managing Indians during this transit period in a very Indian way by ignoring all transgressions and hoping that nothing goes wrong.
