Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport- Mumbai.

A recent visit to the airport was very amusing for me. I went to drop my cousin as she returned to land of dumb people. (Oh yes, you guessed it right, The U.S. of A. no offense guys but they spell colour as color: P)
(Hahaha…Microsoft Word just “Red-underlined” the word when I spell it here as colour). Anyhow, as “they” say, by wearing new clothes mentality doesn’t change. (Well, “they” didn’t say that, I just made it up.: P)
Point being, (for all those who dint know) that even though our airport is all new & renovated, looks cool and all, it still remains unorganized, and haphazard.
One can witness more human emotions at an airport, than a fulltoo commercial, masala Hindi film. It still takes half a decade to park & get a trolley, but enough with the criticizing, let’s see what I saw that night.
A dear friend once told me, “Indians by nature are very emotional people”. No two ways about that. But being melodramatic, eccentric, & yes, high-pitched at times, yes all these things too.
Not to hurt the religious sentiments or the undying, blind faith of our respectful senior citizens in God, but come on, taping four of the same pictures of Lord Ganesha on four respective sides of your luggage, isn’t going to save your bag from the scanner, when you have 3 dabba’s of theplas & 4 packets of khakras, covered under shawls, in your bag!! You still are going to get pulled up! For all you know by the time you’re landed, you might not get to see your bag at all, leave alone your safely tagged Lord! And oh, not to mention foreigners looking strangely at you, wondering why you have pictures of a half-man, half elephant tagged to your bag!
It’s sad when dear ones leave you, people cry, whine….blahh, the usual. Yeah, but there are some people, who see their dear ones off, in a strange manner. The both parties are just an inch away from each other, just separated by glass (sound-proof. Mind it.). There they are, seeing each other through the glass, even sticking their nose and lips to say bye…wait, here it comes…and talking on the phone, ALONGSIDE. Well, I found this really funny. There they are just an inch away, looking into each others eyes, and listening to each other on the phone!
Getting a little clichéd, there are the usual, sobbing mothers with a garland & the most portable diya ever created (oil-lamp) in their hand, mothers putting their crying babies to sleep on the floor, etc.
Now we come to the “Not-So-Frequent Flyers”. First timers. Oh boy, they’re the very best. Women and men, all shapes and sizes, in sweaters over salwar kameezes and track pants (respectively), gobbling chaklis, at the airport 4 hours before flight time, in attire fit for the moon. Snacks Bar with the regular “Cutting Chai” has although changed to “Wraps & Rolls and more... and U.S. Pizza, the people still remain the same.
Ahh, the night has ended, he/she is gone. Time to get nostalgic.
My cousin reminded me of a scene in an old Hindi movie (Pardes, if you’re so keen, you silly, over-excited Shahrukh fans would know), and the both of us burst out laughing. We found one of the most heart-wrenching, heart-pounding scenes in the movie, actually quite hilarious. The part where Ganga’s (yes, that’s her name, I have a good memory: P) parents have a tear rolling down from one eye, as they stand waving at the taking off plane, in which Ganga goes to the dumb-people land.
**Tears**………………………NOTTTTTT!!!!! Oh my god, now that’s what u call “plane stupid”... (I.e. plain stupid: P)