At the Airport

The woman squawked out ‘last and final call for Mr Ram Verma’. I craned my neck to see who was delaying the flight. The others in the queue seemed not so flustered. Minutes went by. Next announcement: ‘last and final call for Mr Ram Verma, Shrimati Sita Verma, Master Lav Verma, Miss Lavina Verma’. Hainh? I thought, an entire family is late now? When for the fifteenth time that same staff called ‘a last and final call’ for the same lot of names, I went and asked her whether she knew the meaning of ‘last and final’. She was flummoxed; then she said, if I don’t make this call three dozen times, the passengers will say ‘you didn’t tell us’ or ‘you told us only once’. Apparently, if a single ‘last and final’ announcement is made, that’s insufficient. That’s not the only thing that makes Indian airports special. Last weekend, whilst waiting for a flight, I discovered that when a flight is delayed, after the initial message of ‘by two hours’, it’s delayed by ten minutes at a time, sometimes for another hour or more. The truth is hidden behind accents no one follows. The twenty-something lipstick-wearing girl handling her boyfriend-via-mobile and irate customer simultaneously hadn’t a clue why the morning fog in Thane, Mumbai, was causing a problem at Kempa Gowda, Bangalore, after sixteen hours. Another thing: a flight which must take fifty minutes to a destination, on the ticket shows sixty minutes as flying time. So, when it does reach in fifty, wind conditions being kind and all, the pilot proudly announces how his airlines is always before time, pre-punctual, so to say, a new addition to the Indlish lexicon. Who’s to tell him that that’s rubbish? Most of us don’t even wish the pilots, nor they us, what with the cabin crew forming a protective namaste barrier between flier and flown. If I thought the ground staff spoke in a strange accent, I have to admit that the flying employees talk in stranger accents. Even a normal ‘hullo’ to answer a phone call is a ‘hellyo’ for them. Someone in that industry should explain that to me. These days, old timers say, there’s no charm in flying. All sorts of riff-raff occupy hard steel benches and eat (God forbid!) samosas with cholay. Seats have to be alongside courier boys and unshaven IT types. And humour columnists. Gross. It has interesting moments, though. I once entered the ladies’ loo-cubicle and found a handbag on the ledge above the flush. Immediately, I alerted those outside, who were washing hands, adjusting straps or trying to make sense of the hot-air drier. Everyone had a dazed look in their eyes: no one speaks to strangers at airports, right? When they do, they make friends, exchange phone numbers, offer jobs, insurance policies, and more. So, I made my announcement again: there’s a purse in here, someone’s left a purse here, who’s purse is this, etc. One woman sweetly, unexpectedly and very stupidly asked, ‘are you sure it’s not yours?’ I love Indians from India, I tell you, especially those we meet at airports. It’s a breed you don’t find at railway stations any longer. As for bus depots, no one has the time to spend in chit-chat there. Bus-stands are no longer addas for non-destitutes. The real fun in watching human behaviour is at airports these days. And in aircraft. As in trains, so in aircraft, everyone switches seats to sit with old acquaintances met at the airport or new one’s made there. Drives the cabin-crew crazy, trying to figure out who’s in which seat and whom to give which pre-sold meal to. We’re Indians, no? In spite of the fact that our mobile phones occupy forty-nine percent of our waking hours exchanging news like what we had for the last two meals, and the digestive episodes that followed, we still love live company. Seating arrangements and systems be damned. If one can get a free wheelchair and someone to roll us around in comfort, we book one; do our shopping, see the pretty sights inside these glamourous new airports and—oh, yes—break queues legitimately. The queue; a topic I could write a tome on: we know we have to stand in one, just not sure which end to join. Those yellow lines behind which we must wait make no sense to us. One woman behind me at security asked me whether she could go before me. She was on my flight. I let her. Did she know that whether or not she went first, the flight would not leave without either of us? I don’t know. I think she just wanted to be ‘first’. ‘Main first aa gayee’ carries a lot of weight, doesn’t it? A feel-good factor, seen at buffet meals and, of course, at airports. One woman who thought I looked familiar (I have such a common face, everywhere I go people say they know someone who looks just like me. I say to them, in my mind, ‘damn, not again’) stared at me, smiled, asked if I was Y Z. When I shook my head to say ‘no’, she said, ‘sorry, but what’s your name’. I mean, why did I have to tell her? I did. Conditioning. I’m Indian. I also asked her what her name was. Within minutes we talked about our childhood illnesses, in-laws’ problems, the consequences of voting for a certain party and how to cook without onions and tomatoes. Tomaatoes. Tomaytos. Tamaatars. Tambaaters. Indians at airports speak in several Indlishes; Marathindlish, Hindlish, Assamglish… and therefore, various pronunciations are heard and spoken, repeated, echoed so the other person comprehends… in ‘silent’ airports it’s great fun, uninterrupted by the growl and squeak of the (very) loud-speaker. Best of all, was landing and exiting at Goa. Even Allahabad and Gauhati airports aren’t as good. We have carpeted ramps with little ripples that engage our sense of balance, tripping us at intervals, ensuring we never get old with all that jumping to avoid the bumps under our feet. Dragging trolley-bags over a surface with resistance helps us strengthen shoulders and wrists. The fungus and mould that flourish in the tropical temperatures and humidity build up the immune system. There’s more, but I’m running out of words. Best of all, this is a military airport. No photos, say the signs. But they who own and will and must use all features of their mobile phones don’t know that or can’t read or aren’t bothered. As it is, in this age of satellite pictures tracking where we live and where we go, does it matter if we take a selfie with a loved one with the backdrop of runway lights? Apparently, in our airports, it does.