(Airport Thoughts part – II… a reference to an ancient post written by me on this blog)
Once again (and after a very long time) I find myself “trybbling” (typing | scribbling) at Bengaluru Airport… or as I often say, the airport without a name! I really wish I had something else to say about the airport, but apart from the fantastic steel and glass structure with the shiny stonework and everything else which makes one go gaga, the one thing I really wish is that they gave the airport a name apart from calling it simply as Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. We have an enormous treasure of great leaders and people who claim themselves as great leaders and I am sure none of them would mind lending their good names to the place.
On a second thought, maybe it is better just this way! Imagine all the names that could be given… (*wink*wink*)
Ahem! So lets see…
A casual observance, led to a profound thought this morning. As I was enjoying a pleasantly overpriced breakfast, I observed how well we have adapted to the self-service system, where one pays at a counter then moves to a separate counter to take our food, place it on a tray and then carry it on our own to a table and enjoy the labour which we just undertook.
A few years in the past, as short as 8 years ago, this would have been a practice that would have been looked down upon strongly. One just did not carry his/her own food then. It had to be served. We pride ourselves in our culture where our food is served, drivers (chauffeurs for the élite) drive our cars and maids clean our homes, while some cook cooks our food. All this while… we do… I don’t know… What did we do?!
But coming back to what I was saying… yes… we eat our food… then we most pleasantly leave the tray on the table, for a cleaner to come and remove it.
Come on, lets accept it. We have adapted ourselves to serve our own food. But throwing away the leftovers… Naah! That is just beneath us! After all, we are Indians. In the words of the former Chief Justice whose name I cannot recall anymore, we are a culture where throwing garbage is a work for the élite while the people who keep the city clean are the lowly ones.
How ironical!
And then I noticed another strange behavior. This one gentleman dropped one of those flimsy plastic spoons on the floor while carrying his tray to his table. He made an animatedly flustered face which was a complex mix of surprise and shame… quickly looked around to see if anyone saw the spoon fell… did not notice me staring at him… then did a swift about turn to get a new spoon and quickly rushed to a table.
Now, this is a behavior that I noticed is pretty common. I really do not understand why we behave so when a spoon or a fork or anything similar falls down in a public place. Our faces emanate a look as if it is completely the fault of the spoon… how dare it fall down!
What I mean is that is it so difficult to just pick it up and throw it in the trashcan instead of going through such an enormous charade of emotions?
Once again I realize, we Indians have weird social inhibitions.
We are trying to slowly ape the self-dependent society of the west where one does all their work on our own and although we haven’t achieved that status completely but somewhere someday we will do so… hopefully! *Sigh*
Before I end, a couple of things that I must mention…
Yesterday, the last telegram of the country was sent as India officially terminated the services owing to the change of times. In the words of the headlines in the DNA:
Telegram expired. 9pm. Sad.
The other point is about The Minions from the Despicable Me series. I feel they are the most adorable entities of this decade. If you still haven’t heard their own gibberish versions of “The YMCA song”, “The Banana Song” and the most amusing version of “I swear”, then I must say that you YouTube it at the earliest. And then you can consider using one of them as a ringtone… a thought you will regret as soon as your phone rings in public!
If could speak Minionese, I would say… “Its 8.30 am here… Rise and Shine India!”
Now, I don’t know how to say that in Minionese but I am sure you get it all the same!
#Papadom Papoye Bo Deep!
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