Airport

[Not to be confused with Arthur Hailey’s exemplary work of fiction. On second thoughts, why would it? Everyone calls it an airport; he merely accompanies it with some exceptionally vivid literature].


Most people hate stopovers. I love them. But most people don’t have as much time as I do, or the inclination to spend a few precious hours observing Homo sapiens and their intriguing ways. I rank airports among the top in my list of “pensive, thought-provoking, muse-inducing” places, second only to the fringes of a water body and Park Avenue and 46th Street.

To me, there are few things more fascinating than playing the observant “stranger in the crowd”, reason why I have spent a fair bit of my 20-something life lost in many muses amid the animated bustle of NY Penn station where most people have only one thought (Am I going to make it to the train?) and the pandemonium at Mumbai’s Victoria Terminal where the average thought process gets a little more profound (Am I going to get killed making it to the train?), but limited nonetheless (as evidenced by the not uncommon sight of people running through, under and over trains while getting to them).

Now, an airport provides all of that, and then some. Some meaning a barstool at a safe distance from travel-plagued, time-hungry commuters, not to mention endless cups of coffee and a bagel, whose less-than-desirable toasting I ignore on account of the range of delightful views my situation affords: people sauntering, strolling, striding, stumbling, fleeing or downright hurtling (often dangerously) to the airport newsstand, café & restaurant, restrooms, customer service, telephone stalls and gates (in that order). And for once, I actually watch people without judgment (well, unless it’s as unavoidable as that guy picking up a copy of Cosmo at Daily News or the girl in stilettos struggling to carry a dime-sized piece of luggage).

And if you’re fortunate, you grab that last table by the window overlooking the runway, so you can occasionally turn your sights from the many flaws of humankind, where planes replace people and conduct themselves with slightly more aplomb, proving that man-made machines are indeed more poised than man. However, sometimes you get luckier still and watch bags and boxes topple over each other as they make their way to the cargo hold and contend that the inanimate does fail occasionally (the result of which is a suitcase I will never use again and another that turns around and rolls in the opposite direction just for the heck of it, offering a bout of pleasure to perhaps a likeminded soul).

So, I find myself luxuriating in the wait time of an hour and 20 minutes at Charlotte Douglas International, oodles of coffee, an untoasted bagel that makes up in sheer amount of cream cheese, too many muses and a sorry laptop that bears the brunt of it all (mostly in the form of some visible caffeine and a slightly less efficient keyboard)......