I was waiting in the Bangalore airport lounge to catch a late night flight back home, happy with the Hampi adventure. The Indigo flight 529 it seemed was delayed by another hour and a half. Strange considering the airlines had regularly reminded me for at least a month that the flight was preponed by fifteen minutes due to logistics. Early, I had wondered carelessly? Well change was certainly on its way, we were surely progressing collectively as a nation. I was wrong and how wrong was proved soon enough.

I was engrossed in a card game on my phone when I heard raised voices in a Bengali accent that they were not duly informed that the plane had been delayed and they had now been waiting for  almost 3 hours. They should be given refreshments immediately as they were hungry. A crowd gathered as in all things Bengali and a chorus demanded meals if the flight did not take off in the next fifteen minutes. There was a frenzy all around. Somebody asked for compensation. Someone asked to see the Manager. They assiduously jotted down complaint numbers and mail IDs .  In the midst of all this Bengali-ness a silver haired lady spoke in a crisp English accent that she was on a secret mission and had to be at the Bangladesh Border for an anti terrorist infiltration Mission by 3 a.m. Her bosses had informed the Indigo bosses and now the airline would have to answer to her superiors. Oops there seemed to be an Intelligence breach? Not really and the crowd continued ranting their own stories, hardly hearing her protests and this issue of grave national importance was completely side lined.

A young girl, the Manager on duty  surfaced and tried to pacify an irate crowd, obviously unused to the Bengali fondness for hyperbole. She politely pointed out that there were food kiosks in the vicinity when a young man piped up that his wife was pregnant and she needed home cooked food. Else she would faint and would the airline be responsible? The young, polite staff  were nervous and looked unsure as they tried to defuse this  situation. Suddenly a loud voice countered that she was a frequent International traveler and this happened everywhere and we should leave these youngsters alone. Right, I nodded in agreement. They were really not responsible. The rest of the crowd started booing her and making snide remarks that  she should pack her bags and permanently leave for vilayat. The crowd was now split in two as they hurled abuses and pointed fingers at each other.

Always ready to fight for the underdogs I sauntered across to join the fracas. For once I was flummoxed. The very young staff were being unnecessarily heckled. The international traveler was right in defending them. Yet again there were unnecessary delays all the time, amounting to harassment and we had become passive customers. We needed to get the point across strongly. The scheduled flight was for 11.00 p.m. and if we landed at 1.45 a.m. or 2.30 p.m. in the middle of the night pre-dawn wouldn’t make much of a difference. Did we need to rave and rant? Also having been at the receiving end on my journey from Kolkata to Bangalore and then to Hampi I was a tad inclined to side with the rabble rousers.

On the flight from Kolkata we hovered over Bangalore airport for 80 minutes as there was a traffic congestion and we were 30th in line. While taking off for Hampi we boarded the aircraft and were almost literally strapped to the seats for almost an hour as we were 26th in waiting. It was early morning and we were all kinda looking forward to the hot coffee and the tasteless Upma. We were peremptorily told that no hot stuff could be served till the flight took off and we had to make do with cookies and juices (We had to obviously pay for the same). Thankfully there was no delay for the flight from Hampi to Bangalore or I might have been running on the tarmac to board the flight to Kolkata which was two and a half hours later. Just as well the flight was delayed.

I was tempted to raise my voice for the delay when some security personnel appeared to break up the mob and almost miraculously a fleet of buses arrived to take us to the waiting plane. The staff hurriedly cleared our passes and we found ourselves queuing up with a nippy wind in our faces. We found our seats, amidst the jostling edgy crowd and the pilot apologized profusely over the PAS, that there was a delay in Mumbai which had caused this unnecessary delay and they were taking off immediately without taking a break for freshening up, to avoid troubling us any further. Blah blah blah blah!

The doors shut and the plane slowly taxied out of the parking slot and sashayed to a stop near the runway. We were stuck there for almost 30 minutes. It was indeed a clever ruse to stop us from creating havoc. By then snugly settled into the seats the protestors were probably lulled into a sense of complacency of having achieved what they wanted. Did they really?  In an event free journey the plane took off and in almost less than two hours we were circling Kolkata airport. A two and a half hour flight in 2 hours was almost as though the pilot flew at breakneck speed to rid himself of this unruly bunch. We sleepily tumbled out to collect our baggage. A sleepy Kolkata airport. A familiar dank smell. A long wait. The suitcases rolled out at leisure. One and two and none. Three and four and some. None protested this callous inefficient lethargy. We were back home after all.

Only if we from Kolkata created as much of a ruckus at home for unnecessary delays, inefficiency and idle talk we may have been ruling the nation. Then again the nation is faltering on the basics of discipline punctuality and professionalism.

Alas if we choose our collision course with care we could be riding the tail winds to success instead of heading off winds of change and wallowing in decadence.