I was at the airport that day to receive an old friend, the flight Air India was supposed to arrive at 4:25 but my luck was as screwed up as the weather outside.
I was left with 3 hrs to kill , so I walked around the airport, checked out the washroom I had heard so much about, I also decided a few ‘to do’ things for next week. A lot has happened in past few months that is the first time for me so i think it is best to face them head-on; This is a new thing I have started ; i.e. to make short plans. The previous advise by mom and dad did not seem to work out well in this time .They always advised to think where you wish to reach after 10-15 yrs and that definition for me was a learned scientist, teacher and a master of his subject and all the studious crap, I seemed to have over looked the thing about the weird neighborhoods i had to walk through on the way. Any way I am thinking better now and probably shall not make similar mistakes again.
I thought about some en-vogue things in life, some of which i never thought of in college.it probably comes with the solitude in life and also is guided by the other major happenings in the life of late. Probably never thought of money before this and hence probably got left behind in the race to independence . I think every one thinks about this stuff some day though seemingly exerting initially i think it imbibes into reflexes and the personality gradually .
Well still 2 hrs to go so I decide to go ahead and get a front pillar at the arrival at the O’Hare terminal 5. It is always busy here, I had heard so I did not want to blow it all away once I had waited this long. Besides it was nice to see the flood of happiness on the passengers faces and their relatives at the terminal meeting hall. If watched keenly one could observe the exact changes in the expressions , from a mission accomplished at the luggage collection , to finding the exit , the search mode with mixture of eagerness, hope and restlessness all along with the dark light adjustment causing a little frowning.
There are so many things you can pick up from the faces if you watch closely. I always knew but just seemed to realize that the facial representation on the homunculus was probably meant for a reason and men always tend to find alternatives to the real mode of expression the one which took millions of years to develop through exhaustive selection and survival , it can never ever be taken over by a speech , an essay or a novel for that matter.
Their steps would speed in the last leg of the tunnel and then the slowdown to figure out the 'where and who' and then the burst of emotions , smiles , tears and screaming in case of a pair of Spanish sisters. This seemed to be a great entertainment. I seemed to enjoy and tried to catch as many transitions in expressions as the passengers just kept coming and realized the reason why it was one of the busiest airports in the planet.
I then fixed on one phenotypically Indian middle aged woman , she had a moderate amount of baggage, she too was scanning with a reasonable speed and it seemed she was confident about presence of someone to receive her , my impression from the past 2 hr's experience was that the person would be her son , She waited at the exit gate for some time . It seemed to take some time I thought probably because of the rush and the crowd , (dam!! the population explosion) she was pushed to the side due to the on coming passengers . She waited for about ten minutes; I could easily observe that even after 10 Min's of wait she was very eagerly searching, she probably was very confident that the person would be in the crowed somewhere.
She was not willing to accept the fact that that probably no-one was coming. I was wondering what all must have been going through her mind, probably she must be visualizing her son who had always been immature, childish and UN-organized quite likely had been caught up in traffic or she must have considered the possibility of him being lost or hung up somewhere or probably he must have over slept as he had the problem of waking up to alarms, he always needed his mom to wake him up before exams.
She must have pictured how her first meeting would go with her son probably all throughout the 16 hr flight from India. She might have thought of words to say, things to ask, the hugging and the kissing but that had to wait now. She probably had some gifts for the grand kids as the hand bag seemed unnecessarily large she must have got some sweets for the grand children, their favorites specially bought from the most expensive and clean store in Delhi, She could have been expecting the little grand sons to come along with her son and daughter in law.
The rush and the Chaos had pushed her to the corner of the hall , she seemed well clothed and non American , she had started realizing that the plan had flawed somewhere, She slowly pushed the trolley to the desk in space between the arrival gate A and B , to the so called meeting point where sat an agent .She went ahead and asked the person for something I thought first she must have asked to announce the name or something but no she started walking towards the pay phone.It was probably a good plan that the son might have advised. She surprisingly had a few coins I think she was well organized but she seemed scared now. Already she had a hard time with the agent, asking for the pay phone I could imagine here asking in crude-clumsy English along with the universally understood hand gestures, probably the agent must be used to such questions as he was prompt. She dialed the number which she had carefully noted in the reasonably big black pocket diary which she fished from depths of her large hand bag.
She has a short conversation and seemed satisfied I wished to see the look on her face when she heard the voice from the other side but I missed that as I was few meters behind her. She seemed content and headed off to the wash room and came back soon after grooming herself. She placed herself at the prime seat where she could see every one of the people coming to receive the passengers she sat confidently and reorganized herself and her hair. I would suppose she was hoping to make a good and strong impression on the in-laws. Her fear was visible but not for display to a casual eye the view was one I could not put in words. I just wondered do we always have to keep proving ourselves to people. I could not follow her up any further as they just announced for the arrival of the flight of my primary interest and I had to focus on the gate again.
Personally speaking I decided something that day , and it was not something I could jot down hence I had to write this much but to conclude I think I might want to sacrifice any amount of ambitions in my life to feel that pleasure that the people experience at the meeting hall at airport arrivals. I personally had never seen any thing more overwhelming than in those two hrs.I think if we are sad seeing happy people really helps . That also explains the reason why the comedy shows on TV are very widely followed.
This post is a combination of imagination and a real life incident, dedicated to all the mothers .
I was left with 3 hrs to kill , so I walked around the airport, checked out the washroom I had heard so much about, I also decided a few ‘to do’ things for next week. A lot has happened in past few months that is the first time for me so i think it is best to face them head-on; This is a new thing I have started ; i.e. to make short plans. The previous advise by mom and dad did not seem to work out well in this time .They always advised to think where you wish to reach after 10-15 yrs and that definition for me was a learned scientist, teacher and a master of his subject and all the studious crap, I seemed to have over looked the thing about the weird neighborhoods i had to walk through on the way. Any way I am thinking better now and probably shall not make similar mistakes again.
I thought about some en-vogue things in life, some of which i never thought of in college.it probably comes with the solitude in life and also is guided by the other major happenings in the life of late. Probably never thought of money before this and hence probably got left behind in the race to independence . I think every one thinks about this stuff some day though seemingly exerting initially i think it imbibes into reflexes and the personality gradually .
Well still 2 hrs to go so I decide to go ahead and get a front pillar at the arrival at the O’Hare terminal 5. It is always busy here, I had heard so I did not want to blow it all away once I had waited this long. Besides it was nice to see the flood of happiness on the passengers faces and their relatives at the terminal meeting hall. If watched keenly one could observe the exact changes in the expressions , from a mission accomplished at the luggage collection , to finding the exit , the search mode with mixture of eagerness, hope and restlessness all along with the dark light adjustment causing a little frowning.
There are so many things you can pick up from the faces if you watch closely. I always knew but just seemed to realize that the facial representation on the homunculus was probably meant for a reason and men always tend to find alternatives to the real mode of expression the one which took millions of years to develop through exhaustive selection and survival , it can never ever be taken over by a speech , an essay or a novel for that matter.
Their steps would speed in the last leg of the tunnel and then the slowdown to figure out the 'where and who' and then the burst of emotions , smiles , tears and screaming in case of a pair of Spanish sisters. This seemed to be a great entertainment. I seemed to enjoy and tried to catch as many transitions in expressions as the passengers just kept coming and realized the reason why it was one of the busiest airports in the planet.
I then fixed on one phenotypically Indian middle aged woman , she had a moderate amount of baggage, she too was scanning with a reasonable speed and it seemed she was confident about presence of someone to receive her , my impression from the past 2 hr's experience was that the person would be her son , She waited at the exit gate for some time . It seemed to take some time I thought probably because of the rush and the crowd , (dam!! the population explosion) she was pushed to the side due to the on coming passengers . She waited for about ten minutes; I could easily observe that even after 10 Min's of wait she was very eagerly searching, she probably was very confident that the person would be in the crowed somewhere.
She was not willing to accept the fact that that probably no-one was coming. I was wondering what all must have been going through her mind, probably she must be visualizing her son who had always been immature, childish and UN-organized quite likely had been caught up in traffic or she must have considered the possibility of him being lost or hung up somewhere or probably he must have over slept as he had the problem of waking up to alarms, he always needed his mom to wake him up before exams.
She must have pictured how her first meeting would go with her son probably all throughout the 16 hr flight from India. She might have thought of words to say, things to ask, the hugging and the kissing but that had to wait now. She probably had some gifts for the grand kids as the hand bag seemed unnecessarily large she must have got some sweets for the grand children, their favorites specially bought from the most expensive and clean store in Delhi, She could have been expecting the little grand sons to come along with her son and daughter in law.
The rush and the Chaos had pushed her to the corner of the hall , she seemed well clothed and non American , she had started realizing that the plan had flawed somewhere, She slowly pushed the trolley to the desk in space between the arrival gate A and B , to the so called meeting point where sat an agent .She went ahead and asked the person for something I thought first she must have asked to announce the name or something but no she started walking towards the pay phone.It was probably a good plan that the son might have advised. She surprisingly had a few coins I think she was well organized but she seemed scared now. Already she had a hard time with the agent, asking for the pay phone I could imagine here asking in crude-clumsy English along with the universally understood hand gestures, probably the agent must be used to such questions as he was prompt. She dialed the number which she had carefully noted in the reasonably big black pocket diary which she fished from depths of her large hand bag.
She has a short conversation and seemed satisfied I wished to see the look on her face when she heard the voice from the other side but I missed that as I was few meters behind her. She seemed content and headed off to the wash room and came back soon after grooming herself. She placed herself at the prime seat where she could see every one of the people coming to receive the passengers she sat confidently and reorganized herself and her hair. I would suppose she was hoping to make a good and strong impression on the in-laws. Her fear was visible but not for display to a casual eye the view was one I could not put in words. I just wondered do we always have to keep proving ourselves to people. I could not follow her up any further as they just announced for the arrival of the flight of my primary interest and I had to focus on the gate again.
Personally speaking I decided something that day , and it was not something I could jot down hence I had to write this much but to conclude I think I might want to sacrifice any amount of ambitions in my life to feel that pleasure that the people experience at the meeting hall at airport arrivals. I personally had never seen any thing more overwhelming than in those two hrs.I think if we are sad seeing happy people really helps . That also explains the reason why the comedy shows on TV are very widely followed.
This post is a combination of imagination and a real life incident, dedicated to all the mothers .
