Travelogue
I got down from the cab
saw the crowd hustling at the trolley stand
I moved aside, pulled the handle of my trolly bag, converted it into a makeshit trolly hanged the other bag onto the handle and dragged myself into the que with luggage at the main entrance.
The noise and chaos at the entrance was reminiscent of the bustand in my small town.
A middle aged man appeared from nowhere in the que , he made space first for himself with awkward gyrating movements and then for his wife, my “excuse me “ "excuse me " failed to make it to his temporarily deaf ears.
I reach the gate, show the guard ticket on my tab, my instinct says the guard is faking attention, so I show the ticket date, the destination, the photo on the i card and then point to my face……he nods reluctantly and allows me to move forward…
I get into the check in que, the airline guy appears more of a cop with a walky talkie in hand than the security guy at the entrance , trimly dressed, stern body language , doing a lot of policing ...
The girl at the check in, asks me to load the luggage on to the scale , I am petrified about exceeding the weight limit , ( never worried so much about the kilos getting added on to my body every year )the lady says 2 kgs extra, pay for it, my Indian brain gives me an instant jugaad, I open the trolley , take out the laddu box given by mom in law and shove it into hand luggage with a giggle , the girl gives a helpless look for failing to earn extra bucks for her company thereby hurting her incentives, she asks to get my hand luggage weighed, as i meet the standards , I give her a victory glimpse , collect the boarding pass , security tag and move towards security check .
At the security check , IT employees move at snails pace, loading their laptops and various gizmos into the trays to pass through the scanner, I load my bag and stand in line to get frisked , the young lady does her job in seconds and stamps my pass with elan , i surge ahead to collect my bag and reach the gate to board the bus.
Passengers jostle to get into the bus , as if it is the last bus towards life, as it is the last bus out of war zone, I follow the crowd and struggle to get into the bus and also to get out of the bus , we fail to understand that the flight will not leave without collecting the passengers and their baggage, it is bound to take all the checked in passengers with their checked in luggage. But we have this inbuilt scarcity insecurity insufficiency of missing of losing of starving.... our fears are so unrequited , irrelevant at many places...
We stand as soon as the flight comes to a halt, in spite of the knowledge that disembarking wouldn't start in next 15 minutes , we collect our hand baggage and wouldn't let the old or the lady with an infant standing behind us to move ahead of us , the few minutes which we save really makes no difference in comparison to the generosity we can extend to the passengers who really need to get down ahead of us... I don't know from where this meanness has creeped into our minds, why have we become so petty , to fight over trivial issues like who gets in first or leaves first , or who gets the storage space just above the seat in the overhead bin, or who collects the baggage first at the belt...
I while away my time reading playing with the child in the other row , trying to start a conversation with fellow passenger , talk learn exchange extend inform update ...
This life can become a beautiful one if we become a little giving, a little accomdative, making little bit of space for others, extending a hand of friendship of help.... and In my observations the young behave with more maturity than the middle aged in the above mentioned scenarios ... our hope certainly lies in the young India
I got down from the cab
saw the crowd hustling at the trolley stand
I moved aside, pulled the handle of my trolly bag, converted it into a makeshit trolly hanged the other bag onto the handle and dragged myself into the que with luggage at the main entrance.
The noise and chaos at the entrance was reminiscent of the bustand in my small town.
A middle aged man appeared from nowhere in the que , he made space first for himself with awkward gyrating movements and then for his wife, my “excuse me “ "excuse me " failed to make it to his temporarily deaf ears.
I reach the gate, show the guard ticket on my tab, my instinct says the guard is faking attention, so I show the ticket date, the destination, the photo on the i card and then point to my face……he nods reluctantly and allows me to move forward…
I get into the check in que, the airline guy appears more of a cop with a walky talkie in hand than the security guy at the entrance , trimly dressed, stern body language , doing a lot of policing ...
The girl at the check in, asks me to load the luggage on to the scale , I am petrified about exceeding the weight limit , ( never worried so much about the kilos getting added on to my body every year )the lady says 2 kgs extra, pay for it, my Indian brain gives me an instant jugaad, I open the trolley , take out the laddu box given by mom in law and shove it into hand luggage with a giggle , the girl gives a helpless look for failing to earn extra bucks for her company thereby hurting her incentives, she asks to get my hand luggage weighed, as i meet the standards , I give her a victory glimpse , collect the boarding pass , security tag and move towards security check .
At the security check , IT employees move at snails pace, loading their laptops and various gizmos into the trays to pass through the scanner, I load my bag and stand in line to get frisked , the young lady does her job in seconds and stamps my pass with elan , i surge ahead to collect my bag and reach the gate to board the bus.
Passengers jostle to get into the bus , as if it is the last bus towards life, as it is the last bus out of war zone, I follow the crowd and struggle to get into the bus and also to get out of the bus , we fail to understand that the flight will not leave without collecting the passengers and their baggage, it is bound to take all the checked in passengers with their checked in luggage. But we have this inbuilt scarcity insecurity insufficiency of missing of losing of starving.... our fears are so unrequited , irrelevant at many places...
We stand as soon as the flight comes to a halt, in spite of the knowledge that disembarking wouldn't start in next 15 minutes , we collect our hand baggage and wouldn't let the old or the lady with an infant standing behind us to move ahead of us , the few minutes which we save really makes no difference in comparison to the generosity we can extend to the passengers who really need to get down ahead of us... I don't know from where this meanness has creeped into our minds, why have we become so petty , to fight over trivial issues like who gets in first or leaves first , or who gets the storage space just above the seat in the overhead bin, or who collects the baggage first at the belt...
I while away my time reading playing with the child in the other row , trying to start a conversation with fellow passenger , talk learn exchange extend inform update ...
This life can become a beautiful one if we become a little giving, a little accomdative, making little bit of space for others, extending a hand of friendship of help.... and In my observations the young behave with more maturity than the middle aged in the above mentioned scenarios ... our hope certainly lies in the young India
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