Just the other day, I was waiting for a flight at the new T-3 terminal at the IGI airport at Delhi and watching and observing people (my favourite pastime) and the scenes around me. I recollect my journeys through airports and I realize that they mirror the metamorphosis that our country has gone through as well the social changes that have evolved in the past few decades.
My first memories of airports are of Bangalore. Infact, the first photograph that I have with Aparna (my wife) is one when we were 4 & 5 years old in front of the Bangalore airport and incidentally she has her arm around another boy!!!! I remember going to the airport a couple of times to see off my dad or when my father had to receive some important dignitary from his office. We (my brother and I) would pester him to take us to the viewing gallery from where we could see the aeroplanes (May be that’s where my love for aeroplanes started) and to reach the gallery we had to go through the arrival / departure lounge.
I remember Bangalore airport to be a modern, reasonably large, high roofed building with a huge, monstrous parking lot in front which was never even half full. The departure lounge was large with a few check in counters of Indian Airlines and a sprinkling of seats and shops. The atmosphere used to be rather sombre with well heeled gentlemen in suits or very fashionable clothing and of course the women were impeccably attired as well. It was definitely the upper crust of society travelling either on work or for pleasure. Just being in that environment was extremely intimidating I remember. And it didn’t really change much even till I got married which was in 1998. Bangalore airport was still the same, just that there were a few more airlines like Modiluft, etc. I was still apprehensive of the people and the prohibitively expensive shops. It appeared that time had stood still.
Now I take you to IGI airport at Delhi in 2000 when I had gone to drop Aparna off, she was off to Germany on some official work. Of course, one couldn’t enter the airport because it was international and all that, but the scenes I witnessed spoke a thousand words. It was rather late in the night and yet there were a sea of people, some going to the middle east or gulf as we call it, in search of a better life I guess, with hope in their faces and sadness in the eyes of their families. You could also spot the occasional student, some with trepidation writ all over and some expectant of a new future, worrying mothers giving last minute instructions. And of course there were the new brides and grooms who were accompanied by a retinue of family and well wishers. The grooms invariably looked harried or bored, waiting to get inside while the brides were either emotional, fearful of the future and sad to let go of comforting environs and family or the ones with shiny eyes eager to break free from the frustrating bonds of being middle class and looking forward to a new life in the West, all that they dreamed of and saw in the movies. I’ve seen a few airports around the world but this varied an emotional scene and all the drama I guess is only possible in India.
In the period from 2007-09, I had to travel a lot on work to Delhi. This was the time when Delhi was gearing herself up for the now infamous Commonwealth Games and in the list of infrastructure works was also the modernization / renovation of the airport. In those days, the New Delhi airport especially the departure lounge 1B had taken on the look of a railway station. There were huge crowds of people, loud intrusive announcements so endemic to Indian railway stations and the chaos and bedlam that ensued the moment boarding for any flight was announced. The scenes were reminiscent of any railway station, a young boy, inconsolably crying, I am not sure for what, maybe his mama did not buy him an ice cream from CCD (Café Coffee Day). In between the strident announcements by budget airlines desperately trying to get Mr Thakkar and Mr & Mrs Jawa to board the plane are the soft and mellifluous announcements of a King Fisher ground staff requesting all their ‘Guests’ to please proceed for boarding.
In all this melange of people consisting of miniskirted and fabulously fragrant air hostesses to the nervous and intrepid first timers looking a little out of place, I spy a saffron robed gentleman with stripes of vermilion and ash smeared on his forehead, a devotee of Shiva, a mendicant maybe, looking at peace with the world. I try to observe him for a few minutes but my focus is repeatedly broken by the pretty, mini skirted air hostesses of various airlines carrying not just their smart Loius Vuitton bags but literally a physical space enveloped in their heavy perfumes. My reverie is suddenly broken by the harsh announcement of my name being called to board my flight and gets me out of my day dream.
And today if you visit the T3, it’s a modern marvel of glass and steel and marble, lofty arches and pretentious designs. It has a multitude of shops selling overpriced designerware from clothes to camera to chocolates and watches. It represents the new India and its double figure GDP and its buying power. And thankfully the toilets are sparkling clean. It is efficient, immaculate and soulless. Even the people who frequent it are rather cold and aloof, most either animatedly chattering away on their cell phones, furiously clicking away on their laptops or doing something on their cell phones or i-pads and stuff. You don’t see people talking to one another anymore. I don’t know what the truth of it is, the internet and the ‘flat world’ was supposed to have made it a ‘global village’ but it seems to be more like we’ve created billions of islands of ourselves, more comfortable in our ‘social networks’ than our real lives. Of course the icing on the cake are the matronly ‘air grandmothers’ I prefer to call them, on the Indian Airlines flight. Ah but then that’s a different thought altogether.
