Kaleideoscope

9:30am, Arrival lounge, Bangalore airport
I am told that I can't go all the way up to the baggage claim area. The security guy at the gate pays no heed to my request that 'my old parents will need help with the luggage' and 'that's the reason I got a ticket into the arrival lounge'. What's the point if all I can do with this ticket is stick my nose against the glass window and watch my parents struggle with the luggage at the conveyor?? Ah well, this is a country where all the rules are followed! I cursed the terrorists for all the terror they have managed to spread and just hoped that there will be someone near the belt to help my parents! Then I just went and stuck my nose at the glass window and felt good about being short...cause the glass was dirty everywhere above my nose with all and sundry sticking their noses! :)

On the other side of the 'laksman rekha' a girl stood and handed out plastic red roses and a Kemp fort coupon with a promise "get a free parker pen*" with some fine print at the end which was too fine for me to read from a 2 feet distance. She was neatly dressed and it looked like she drew her inspiration from some regional film actress. She did not have enough roses/coupons to give every person who walked out of the terminal. She had some random algorithm to gauge who deserved her 'smile, rose, coupon' package. Without even giving her the slightest hint, I played a mind-game with her. I would give myself a point every time I guessed the package recipient accurately! Initially I got a couple of wrong hits...but gradually I figured her thinking pattern and declared myself the winner!

A shabbily dressed guy (he came to receive someone in his night clothes!) went up to the security guy and posed a similar request to allow him to enter into the baggage claim area. When the security guy declined, this guy crossed the 'lakshman rekha' and stood just near the gate on the other side. He seemed to derive a lot of satisfaction in standing on the other side and it looked like someone else had just declared himself a winner! The security guy kept requesting him to move back...but this pajama clad guy (I could bet my life he hadn't come to pick someone he wanted to set an impression on) just pretended to be lost in thought and gazed into infinity.

All kinds of people walked out of the gate. There were those who still seemed to be thinking of the business deal they had struck and were mentally still in the board room. There were others who were first time fliers and just seemed mighty happy about the deal they got with the flight tickets! Then, there were travelers from abroad who were just trying to comprehend if this really was the airport at the Silicon valley of India. I took my nose off the window and sat down to observe the stream of people. I took my eyes off the gate and the stream when a little girl probably 6 years of age started running excitedly around the bunch of chairs chasing her cousin/brother/family friend who must have been double her age and size. Her target was too fast for her, but for a moment she din't think it was unachievable. She gleefully just kept going round and round in circles as if someone had put her there to demonstrate that life is about the journey, not about the end.

I began building little stories around each of the characters. What would have been the purpose of their trip? Were they coming back happy, sad or neutral? I thought back to the very first time I flew (incidentally out of this very airport) and smiled to myself thinking of the excitement and the anticipation of a weird feeling in the tummy when the aircraft took off. Memories of some of the significant trips I had made out of here came flooding by. I thought of the uncountable times I had come here to see someone off or to pick someone up. My mind ran its little what-if analysis of some of these significant trips and how my life would be different if some of these trips hadn’t been made. I am glad I can’t be certain that the difference would be for the better or for the worse. It was just a little holiday that my mind took to go down memory lane…and when it came back…it wasn’t without some unwanted holiday weight!

To lighten things up, ironically, there was this plump 7-8 year old fair, curly haired girl. Her parents were obviously trying to reach someone who should have been here by now to pick them up. They were not too happy about being kept waiting and I pitied the person on the other side of the line. The family shared the 'plumpness' gene and this didn't look like a couple you would like to mess with! In sharp contrast, the little girl didn't seem to be bothered about not being home or in a car on the way home. She seemed pretty happy about not having an air hostess tying her to a seat. She kept herself busy by playing hopscotch on the mosaic tiles. She had made her own rules about which tile to step on and which one to miss and the fact that she looked clumsy and un-lady like was not in her scheme of thoughts. In the span of some 10 tiles in her charlie chaplin hop, she managed to win an admirer! This 1.5 year old boy (who had just about learnt to walk and was keen on honing his newly acquired skills) set himself free from his mother's grip and ran to the curly charlie chaplin! The speed and accuracy with which the 1.5 year old had picked the 'most interesting company' in the crowd of people was to be admired. It could only have been done by someone who hadn't spent a life time trying to learn the obvious!

The pajama clad guy's parents and sister finally emerged and no one judged him by his cover! Right behind them a group of pilots and air hostesses smartly walked by dragging their neat and chic suitcases. The group kind of maintained a little distance from one of the pilot-air hostess pair. They looked like they had a little something special going on between them. The way they were alienated from the rest of the group made it seem like they were breaking some commonly accepted rules in the society!

Everyone walking past the gate had a different pattern and a certain beauty about them. Here was a slice of life…in the power wielding security guy, the egotistical pajama man, the innocent girl running around in circles, the visionary toddler, the happy Charlie Chaplin and her angry parents. Even though I won the mind-game with the girl handing out the roses using some reasoning, I could have stood there all day and wouldn’t have been able to predict what pattern would emerge out of the gate next. Life is indeed a box of chocolates. The next one I picked could have been nuts, dark chocolate, plain, milk…..anything!


10:30 am, STILL Arrival lounge, STILL Bangalore airport.
Sweet music in my ears…my phone ringing...but I am not too happy about being distracted from the very engaging job at hand. There are so many more people to observe and analyze. ‘Where are you?’ In the maze of all this, I had missed taking note and observing what I came for in the first place. My parents, baggage et al, had walked right under my nose at around 9:40am (probably when it was stuck up against the glass window) while I was busy rotating the kaleidoscope!