Airports are fascinating places, you would agree. They tell stories. And if you have a fertile imagination you would regard and treat them as people, existing in diverse time and space. For example, the airport at Kolkata exudes the weary charms of a fatigued traveller and Mumbai overwhelms one with its relentless representation of the eternal enthusiast. Guwahati straddles the two extremes with great awkwardness while Dimapur fits into the shoes of a trepid amateur. Ranchi, on the other hand, is truly an impoverished icon of the Old World.
Indira Gandhi International Airport, the Mother of all our airports, is no ordinary entity but a champion of the turbulent multitude. It is a symposium of frayed nerves and hyperactive impulses. It misses, fails, falls, rises, levitates, descends and crashes. It is a universe in pristine state—supreme Chaos—unspoilt by order and discipline. And the exquisite feather—T3—which has recently been added to its glittering cap expands its scope of fallibility to phenomenal depths and heights.
Being the pride of our nation, the IGIA accurately portrays the sentiments as well as quirks of Indian life. India shines and one may get dazzled by this shine as soon as one steps into the IGIA. This shine is sustained by misleading display boards; an amiable staff which comfortably exists in absentia or confusion; frequent conflicts and tussles between aircrafts regarding space (runway space, air space, etc) and time (of departure as well as arrival) and crucial, postmodern breaches of communication between the indoor and outdoor worlds (for example, the airport staff and the airline crew). Here, the relevance of the theory of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ can be put to an acid-test in the context of the current world order. The species which ‘survives’ unscathed, will be hailed as the Masters of Heaven and Earth. If chaos precedes order (or vice-versa) and reaction precedes revolution (or vice-versa), I wonder what IGIA holds in store for us in the years to come! However, at present it effectively binds humanity in an unruly mess. It is a giant, frothy wave which happily tosses people and things (for example, luggage) about in jest and playfulness.
This rambling piece of writing is not an ingratiating gesture (I’m not in the race for that bottle). It is my tribute to a fascinating world where I spend a lot of time, perfectly attuned to the mayhem, called (for the sake of being cheesy) life!
Soumitri
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