The Terminal

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