As I sat down to a long wait for the plane ride at the newly furbished Mumbai Airport, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. The day had not particularly gone well for me and for some one who is conversant with my "days", he/she will realize that this must have been one of those when the higher being had answered yes to all prayers in his inbox (I have of course been listed under spam ever since birth) with the result that my boss got to kick my you know what from earth to the seventh moon of the planet doubledoom in the Galaxy Ultra-Despondency and back and my colleagues got to watch me trudge out of the office with a face longer than the Trans Siberian railway line. This was of course right after the head stewardess on the Singapore Airlines flight had made my miserable existence reach a newer low with the totally demeaning baggage weight problem. And so it was that as I made my way to check into the Jet Airways flight, I was acutely aware of a nagging thought that they might just have instructed the guard at the entrance itself to kick me out to save the time and embarrassment of them having to do it themselves. But nothing of that sort happened and when the lady at the other end of the counter actually waived me through without docking me for the tremendous amount of excess baggage (once again) that I was carrying, I sheepishly looked around half expecting Yamraj on his bull waiting to relieve this world of my burden now that my last wish had been fulfilled. After a thorough recon of the entire premises where I made absolutely sure of the fact that nothing untoward was actually in the offing, I settled down into the lounge and for the first time in a particularly long time observed the people around me.
Right across my seat was this young woman traveling with her father. What caught my eyes wasn’t the fact that she was probably the most beautiful girl I have ever come across but her interactions with her father. She doted on him as only a daughter could and "Uncleji" for his part could not have been more grateful for the fact that she was there by his side. They talked about a hundred different things ranging from her love life which she vehemently denied to his over growing abdominal opulence which he vehemently defended. Their make believe bickering between the constant reminders of soon to be forgotten medicine doses had me in a state of trance when suddenly walks in this newly wed couple all decked up in their marital brilliance. The two were inseparable and it was almost as if her hands had been somehow welded to his. Thank the lord for the guy’s bathroom break and the airport authority’s good judgment in building separate toilets for males and females or the people of the lounge would have actually thought of them as Siamese twins joined at the palm. This bathroom break also allowed my eyes to wander from them onto a group of Japanese ladies obviously touring the country. What made this senior citizen group interesting was of course the fact that they did not speak a single letter of English. So for the first time in many days I got to see what I might have looked like during my interactions in Indonesia. They went from pillar to post trying to figure out when there flight was taking off and every time they asked someone new, the inquisition invariably ended with all the people involved squealing in laughter at the utter helplessness of both – the ones in need of help and the ones wanting to. But what struck me was the fact that when you are with a group of people in the same predicament as yours, somehow the worst of situations are comic rather than tragic. All the Grandmas of course were successfully bundled off to hopefully their correct flight and the lounge returned to a ground state.
My roving eyes were once again searching for some fodder when they fell on this stumbling toddler who thought that every new pair of trousers was some different species worth exploring the girth of. So it was that this little guy barely reaching upto the knees of all those gathered there at the lounge kept on hugging leg after leg after leg with his bemused father keeping a close look from 2 steps behind until he came to the one leg that belonged to his mother and then he hugged no more. The little blob of flesh knew instantly without even looking up that this sari belonged to the one person that mattered most to him and that his search for the elusive specimen of humans was over. Lifted from the ground and lovingly admonished for his thoroughly despicable behavior, he craned his neck over his mother’s shoulder to make sure that his smiling father knew that he was back home. A blink later he was snoring soundly as his parents went around proudly displaying their little gift to the people whose legs had been hugged and wanted to know more about Mr Explorer there.
All this while there was this gentleman sitting next to me looking as if he had returned home to find his apartment robbed of everything except a broken wash basin which he would have to reimburse the landlord for. Hello brother I said!! This is the one person who would know what it was like to be me. I could probably have looked into us having been separated at birth in a mall (Kumbh is so clichéd) but his flight was announced just then and he scurried off at a speed that would have done India’s chances at some Olympics a world of good. Hope he finds some sort of peace in life. Will remember you my friend every time my lips curl up happily and will be more than happy to share it with you.
I still had an hour to go before my plane was scheduled and by this time the place was getting crowded with all sorts of people. There was this "socialite" female dressed to kill through eyesores and next to her was this power suit clad businessman ready to strike the next million dollar deal right then and there. Of course no airport is complete without the quintessential Gujju pariwar returning from some foren land with gifts for the entire Garba dancing community of theirs and we had our share of them as well. But of course everything is after all "saru chhe". Another constant fixture at the lounge has to be Bunty puttar with mummy te daddy – our boisterous cousins from the land of Beas and they were not found wanting in their share of antics on this day either. The usual posse of low hip jeans wearing girlfriends chatting on their fresh off the shelf mobile phones to their boyfriends and metro-sexual males making Shahrukh Khan look justifiable in the role of Asoka "D Grade" strutting across the hall was not left behind either.
So it was that I kept myself entertained till the time they actually announced my flight and then also this peculiar circus did not stop playing itself out. One last piece of entertainment was left yet as an aunty got hauled up for her handbag at the final door before boarding the bus to the plane. It would have been a no contest had either of the parties relented but the aunty wouldn’t let go of her purse because she was of the opinion that whatever they had observed now should have been checked in the security check while the authorities were obviously onto something like Tom onto Jerry. The entire episode culminated in a high intensity spilling of the contents of the hand bag and believe me the number of things that came out, Jack could have in that box and I wouldn’t have been surprised. The first off the bag were the lipsticks followed by some weird form of hairbrushes. Pretty soon cluttered on the table were compacts, 3 different handkerchiefs, papers of all kinds, passports of the entire family, specs to suite every occasion and I finally stopped counting when an entire array of Maybelline products made themselves at home on the table as if it were a showroom shelf. But it did keep me enthralled I must admit.
The flight to Pune was quite scarcely populated giving me ample time to reflect on all that I had seen at the lounge. Flashes of the girl with her father, the newlyweds, the toddler and his doting parents, the entire gang of Japanese tourists, the harrowed businessman and the entire cast and crew of all others who made that particular afternoon at the Chatrapati Shivaji Domestic Airport Terminal 1B so memorable just whizzed across my eyes. And it was then that I realized the power of faces and actions. Human faces in every shape and size, every emotion, every line and eyebrow telling you something, every lip curl denoting a different notion altogether, every twitch of the forehead saying an entire passage, every blink of the eye spilling the events of the entire day like a bestseller to the avid reader, every nod of the head telling the person next to you your feelings, every step presenting you in your unadulterated best. All it took was an afternoon of miserable idleness for me to make an acquaintance with at least twenty different people I have never met in my life and will most probably never even see again. Without saying a word, I was privy to the deepest, most intense secrets of a score of people and they waltzed into mine. All it took was an afternoon of total abandon in an airport lounge to realize the greatest show that is life. Play on….
Right across my seat was this young woman traveling with her father. What caught my eyes wasn’t the fact that she was probably the most beautiful girl I have ever come across but her interactions with her father. She doted on him as only a daughter could and "Uncleji" for his part could not have been more grateful for the fact that she was there by his side. They talked about a hundred different things ranging from her love life which she vehemently denied to his over growing abdominal opulence which he vehemently defended. Their make believe bickering between the constant reminders of soon to be forgotten medicine doses had me in a state of trance when suddenly walks in this newly wed couple all decked up in their marital brilliance. The two were inseparable and it was almost as if her hands had been somehow welded to his. Thank the lord for the guy’s bathroom break and the airport authority’s good judgment in building separate toilets for males and females or the people of the lounge would have actually thought of them as Siamese twins joined at the palm. This bathroom break also allowed my eyes to wander from them onto a group of Japanese ladies obviously touring the country. What made this senior citizen group interesting was of course the fact that they did not speak a single letter of English. So for the first time in many days I got to see what I might have looked like during my interactions in Indonesia. They went from pillar to post trying to figure out when there flight was taking off and every time they asked someone new, the inquisition invariably ended with all the people involved squealing in laughter at the utter helplessness of both – the ones in need of help and the ones wanting to. But what struck me was the fact that when you are with a group of people in the same predicament as yours, somehow the worst of situations are comic rather than tragic. All the Grandmas of course were successfully bundled off to hopefully their correct flight and the lounge returned to a ground state.
My roving eyes were once again searching for some fodder when they fell on this stumbling toddler who thought that every new pair of trousers was some different species worth exploring the girth of. So it was that this little guy barely reaching upto the knees of all those gathered there at the lounge kept on hugging leg after leg after leg with his bemused father keeping a close look from 2 steps behind until he came to the one leg that belonged to his mother and then he hugged no more. The little blob of flesh knew instantly without even looking up that this sari belonged to the one person that mattered most to him and that his search for the elusive specimen of humans was over. Lifted from the ground and lovingly admonished for his thoroughly despicable behavior, he craned his neck over his mother’s shoulder to make sure that his smiling father knew that he was back home. A blink later he was snoring soundly as his parents went around proudly displaying their little gift to the people whose legs had been hugged and wanted to know more about Mr Explorer there.
All this while there was this gentleman sitting next to me looking as if he had returned home to find his apartment robbed of everything except a broken wash basin which he would have to reimburse the landlord for. Hello brother I said!! This is the one person who would know what it was like to be me. I could probably have looked into us having been separated at birth in a mall (Kumbh is so clichéd) but his flight was announced just then and he scurried off at a speed that would have done India’s chances at some Olympics a world of good. Hope he finds some sort of peace in life. Will remember you my friend every time my lips curl up happily and will be more than happy to share it with you.
I still had an hour to go before my plane was scheduled and by this time the place was getting crowded with all sorts of people. There was this "socialite" female dressed to kill through eyesores and next to her was this power suit clad businessman ready to strike the next million dollar deal right then and there. Of course no airport is complete without the quintessential Gujju pariwar returning from some foren land with gifts for the entire Garba dancing community of theirs and we had our share of them as well. But of course everything is after all "saru chhe". Another constant fixture at the lounge has to be Bunty puttar with mummy te daddy – our boisterous cousins from the land of Beas and they were not found wanting in their share of antics on this day either. The usual posse of low hip jeans wearing girlfriends chatting on their fresh off the shelf mobile phones to their boyfriends and metro-sexual males making Shahrukh Khan look justifiable in the role of Asoka "D Grade" strutting across the hall was not left behind either.
So it was that I kept myself entertained till the time they actually announced my flight and then also this peculiar circus did not stop playing itself out. One last piece of entertainment was left yet as an aunty got hauled up for her handbag at the final door before boarding the bus to the plane. It would have been a no contest had either of the parties relented but the aunty wouldn’t let go of her purse because she was of the opinion that whatever they had observed now should have been checked in the security check while the authorities were obviously onto something like Tom onto Jerry. The entire episode culminated in a high intensity spilling of the contents of the hand bag and believe me the number of things that came out, Jack could have in that box and I wouldn’t have been surprised. The first off the bag were the lipsticks followed by some weird form of hairbrushes. Pretty soon cluttered on the table were compacts, 3 different handkerchiefs, papers of all kinds, passports of the entire family, specs to suite every occasion and I finally stopped counting when an entire array of Maybelline products made themselves at home on the table as if it were a showroom shelf. But it did keep me enthralled I must admit.
The flight to Pune was quite scarcely populated giving me ample time to reflect on all that I had seen at the lounge. Flashes of the girl with her father, the newlyweds, the toddler and his doting parents, the entire gang of Japanese tourists, the harrowed businessman and the entire cast and crew of all others who made that particular afternoon at the Chatrapati Shivaji Domestic Airport Terminal 1B so memorable just whizzed across my eyes. And it was then that I realized the power of faces and actions. Human faces in every shape and size, every emotion, every line and eyebrow telling you something, every lip curl denoting a different notion altogether, every twitch of the forehead saying an entire passage, every blink of the eye spilling the events of the entire day like a bestseller to the avid reader, every nod of the head telling the person next to you your feelings, every step presenting you in your unadulterated best. All it took was an afternoon of miserable idleness for me to make an acquaintance with at least twenty different people I have never met in my life and will most probably never even see again. Without saying a word, I was privy to the deepest, most intense secrets of a score of people and they waltzed into mine. All it took was an afternoon of total abandon in an airport lounge to realize the greatest show that is life. Play on….
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