The alarm shrieked ‘Get up…get up, you
lazy bum!’ The sleepy bones said it was still two minutes to 4.30am. This has
been my story three-four times a week for the past few years. Earlier, I used
to always beat the alarm clock - not so now. I physically moved myself to the bathroom to
sleepily brush, shave, bathe and, finally, to get dressed to find a hot cup of
tea and biscuits ready on the table for me to gulp and bid a hasty goodbye to
my home and my home maker. I usually take the auto-rickshaw to go to the
airport for two reasons. One, they are readily available and do not make
you wait or cancel trips like Uber does. Secondly, and more importantly, the
drivers make me pray en route as they speed and steer their black and yellow Ferraris
on the empty Mumbai roads with one eye on the mobile screen watching the movies
while you meekly sit behind clutching your luggage with one hand and the iron
rod in front, praying all the while to the good Lord to reach you safely to the
airport terminal. Same was the story this morning as I was, incidentally, going
to God’s Own Country.
After passing the scrutiny of the
watchful CISF man at the gate, I found myself in a long serpentine queue for
the security check. I overtook an old man before we reached the tail of the
queue to find myself standing behind a young lass. Since it would take me and
my luggage long to reach the security belt, I started the conversation with the safer
option standing behind me and said smilingly, yet with some sense of
bitterness, “Oh the line is so long!” The old man smiled and said, “This happens
sometimes. We will get through in some time. I have seen in the early days of
flying when the queues were much longer and would take very long to reach the
security counter but the good part is, once in queue, you never miss your
flights.”
“You are right. The airports have
improved over the years and, today, most Indian airports are far better than
international airports.”
The old man said, “Things could have
been even better for this country but for corruption. Even if the corruption
had been lower by fifty percent, India would have transformed much earlier. And
you know the reason for corruption? Greed and need…. You want this and that and
are never satisfied with anything you have. When I started working in 1963 as
an engineer for a prestigious engineering firm, I used to get a salary of
three hundred rupees and I have never gone hungry or felt that I am missing out
on anything.”
“1963 is when you started working and
I was born in the same year, which means you’re now…”
“I am eighty-three years old," said
the old gentleman
“You look so good and fit even now.”
“That’s because I keep myself busy. I
got up at 3.15am, got ready, did my puja and made my own tea before coming
here. I have a flight at 6.30am to Coimbatore and then I will go to Chennai at
4pm and return to Mumbai at 11pm. I have three flights to take today and two
important meetings to attend.”
“You’re an inspiration. I have a month
to sign off and was looking forward to taking a break from work after close to thirty-six
years of service and here you are standing before me on the go, never to stop."
“Never stop working. This is my
sixtieth year of working and never plan to retire. If you stay at home, your
wife will ask you to go here, do that, cut the vegetables and you will get
completely wasted and rusted. Keep working and if you do not want to work, do
something for the society. Go to a nearby government hospital and talk to
relatives of patients there or help people with filling up forms and giving
them directions. You will stay engaged and lead a purposeful life.”
“Doesn’t your wife ever complain that
you don’t give her time?” I asked.
“She died twenty-six years ago. The
children live on their own and I live my life, my way.”
By now we had reached the end of the
queue and we proceeded to two separate lines where we put our personal
belongings on trays for the final security check. Bidding a final goodbye to
this young man of eighty-three, I stood on the escalator to go down to the
boarding gates, wondering whether my meeting with this man was a sign, a signal
from somewhere to think about life after another thirty-two days?
As I stepped off the escalator, my
attention was diverted to the crew belonging to another airline with the two
captains leading the way and the beautiful ladies in their smart attire following
with their heels gong clip-clop,
clip-clop…..I was reminded of Catherine Zeta Jones and that made me wonder
whether I was the Tom Hanks of Terminal? Having traversed the country multiple
times and parts of the globe as well, in these thirty plus years of work life,
I must have stayed at the airport terminals, possibly, more than Mr. Victor of
Krakozhia. I went straight to the washroom but a look in the mirror destroyed
my dreams as by no standards did I look even remotely close to Mr. Hanks, not
even a poor Indian cousin.
After waiting at the gate for over an
hour and a half, I finally boarded the flight to Kochi. I had three options…sleep
or watch the in-house entertainment on Vistara World or read the newspaper and
the inflight magazine. Chose the third option and after reading the newspaper
cover to cover, I started going through the magazine. There was an article on Seven Amazing Family Vacations and was
delighted to find that, as a family, we had done four out of seven. There was a
place in New Zealand and one in the Maldives which we might not want to travel
to even in future, but Ranthambhore was one of the final frontiers for us to
explore. The next article however got me engrossed… Savouring the Sublime in Varanasi.
This is one place I definitely want to
see and experience. The author speaks about the breath-taking canvas, meditative
chants of Subah-e-Benaras, a divine
overture orchestrated by the Ganges, as the city welcomes her to its shores.
The city at first glance appears to be completely chaotic and she switches off
the GPS and decides to follow her nostrils to enjoy the variety of food it has
to offer at every nook and corner. Walking through these labyrinth lanes,
eating jalebis and kachoris while passing the famous Kashi
Vishwanath Temple and the Sankat Mochan Temple. Eating hing ki kachori at Shree Ram
Bhandar, enjoying the malai gilouri
(a sweet delicacy folded like a paan)
and the Tiranga mithai (tri-coloured
sweet). The malai peda of Shree
Rajbandhu Sweets cannot be given a miss as would be the Benarasi paan at Deepak
Tambul Bhandar.
In addition to the culinary delicacies
of this oldest living city in the world, there are many more things to die for.
The mandirs and ghats, the boat ride and bath in the holy Ganga, and the famous
Ganga Arti which now is getting copied at all ghats in the country but then you can never beat the original. This is also the land famous for its renowned
musicians like Ustad Bismillah Khan and UNESCO has recognised it as the ‘City
of Music’. Then there are the famed Benarasi Silk sarees to pick from the
weavers directly. What more can you ask for…. simply nothing. This is where the
heart wants to go, get lost and become incognito.
Once again, I find myself at the
crossroads of my upcoming new innings of life. Should I follow the wise man I
met in the morning and keep myself busy at work, never to tire and never to
retire or should I buy myself a one-way train ticket to Varanasi to happily get
lost from the hum-drum of the city and work life, breathe, laugh and live? Airport
Terminals are surely dangerous places, for you always get confused which gate
to take and which flight to catch or wonder whether it would it be better to
miss the flights and stay grounded as a kupamanduka,
the frog in a well.
SS
Pictures: Courtesy internet
