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My wife and I were getting ready to travel from our home in Atlanta to San Francisco to visit our son’s family. We load our luggage into our car and start our one-hour drive to get to the Atlanta airport. That gives us two full hours to check in our bags, finish the security check, and board the flight. It sounds like plenty of time to catch a flight - not so in Atlanta. The nightmares have just begun.
First I need to find a paid parking lot where I can safely leave my car for the next four nights. I first try the long-time parking lots; no luck; not a single parking space is available in the miles and miles of asphalt. I then try the economy lot, the sell-your-car-to-pay-parking fees lot; the abandon-your-car lot. No luck anywhere. In these parking lots that could accommodate thousands of cars in each lot, I could not find a single available space to park my small car. It was as if the entire population of the United States decided to travel on this specific day and all of them also decided to park their cars at the airport.
After a search of a few more parking lots and after my wife had reminded me for the third time that, “This is why I told you that we should take the commuter train to the airport. But you would not listen,” I finally found a paid parking lot with an empty space several miles from the airport; I had a strong doubt that this parking lot was not even located in the State of Georgia.
After parking the car and hauling the luggage across the vast parking lot, we finally reach the check-in counters. We get our boarding passes and start walking towards the security lines. As we approach the security gate, my blood pressure starts rising fast - nightmare No. 2 is just ahead. My perceptible wife turns to me and asks, “What is wrong with you? You look as if you swallowed an entire bowl of hot peppers. Are you OK?” I nod my head and keep walking.
The ordeal of going through the security rituals is never a pleasant one. To me, it is like going through two root-canals at the same time. When we reach the security area, the first pass is to identify yourself as a legitimate passenger by showing your photo ID. The young man seated on a high chair at the security entrance, looks at my driver’s licence photo and then gives me a scowl that makes me feel like I am one of America’s Ten Most Wanted criminals.
Perhaps, for all he knew, all foreign-looking people are part of a mass conspiracy to destroy America and he better keep an eye on me. As the young man continues to stare at my picture and at my face alternatively, I myself begin to scowl and inadvertently confirm his suspicions with my twitching and mumbling.
After a few more minutes of scrutiny, the young man decides to let me go. Maybe he got bored or saw someone more suspicious looking than me. I quickly proceed towards the security screening area lest he changes his mind. We place our carry-on bags on the conveyor belt for X-ray screening and as per regulations, both my and I also take off our shoes and place them inside a tray. As we start walking towards the security booth, I notice my wife had a look of utter disbelief in her eyes and was shaking her head in disapproval. I gesture to her “What is it now?” My wife points to my feet and like a headmistress chiding an incorrigible 12-year-old, says, “Look at your socks. You have a big hole and half your toe is sticking out of it. It is shameful (MAnam Poradhu). You have a drawer full of brand new socks without holes. Everyone is going to think that these Indians are poor and starving and can’t afford even a pair of socks.”
With a sheepish grin on my face, I place my right foot over my left to hide the hole while trying to walk without falling on my face. My wife walks a good five feet behind me. She has decided not to acknowledge me in public for the remainder of the day.
Our hand bags had already gone through the X-ray machines and a security person was holding one of our bags in his hand. As soon as he saw us, he asks, “Sir, is this your bag? I need to open this bag for inspection.” Like Clint Eastwood, I tell him “Go ahead; Make my day.” He ignores me and my weird sense of humour and opens the bag. He immediately picks up a little plastic box from inside. “Sir, what is inside this box? Take the contents out please.” I respond, “It is our food. You know we have a five-hour flight and they don’t really feed you on the plane.”
The security guard, now more curious about the strange-looking Indian bread (chapathi) and the cooked vegetables, ignores the line backing up behind us. “Where is the meat?” I respond, “We are vegetarians. We don’t eat meat.” The security guard looks at me incredulously, “Oh really! How come! Is it because you worship cows?” My wife did not want any part of this intellectual exchange between her husband and the security guard; she walks a few feet away and sits on a nearby chair. I reply to the security guard, “My wife and I have been vegetarians since we were born. We cannot consume any other food.” The guard, not happy with my reasons for being a vegetarian, continues, “You are missing a lot of good food. Is being a vegetarian some kind of a religious thing?” I nod “Yes.” The security guard decides that this frail-looking and famished vegetarian couple are too incapable of hurting anyone let alone hijack a big 737 aircraft. He lets us go.
We eventually reach the boarding gate, find two empty seats, and ease into them. We still have an hour to board the flight. My wife, tired from this whole ordeal, is no longer interested in small talk, particularly with a husband who managed to shame her and one billion Indian people with his torn socks and frivolous conversations. She takes a book out and begins to read it. Having nothing else to do, I start people-gazing.
After a few minutes, I realise that not one passenger seated in our gates or walking through the concourse has a smile on their face. Every one of them looked distraught and ready to blow a fuse. A few even appeared lost, like they didn’t know what they were doing in an airport or where they were going. An elderly gentleman, about 70 years of age, was dragging his Pullman and running. Perhaps, he was looking for the right boarding gate. But after walking about 100 yards, he turns around and starts walking in the other direction. A 100 yards later, he turns back and starts walking back in the direction from where he originally came. He looked so lost that I started thinking that maybe he had been in this airport for months or years and had spent all this time looking for the right gate and hadn’t found it yet.
I chuckle at my own absurdity. My wife closes the book she was reading and says, “This travelling is so stressful; I wish our children lived close by. Airports have become miserable places.” I nod my head vigorously in agreement with her. Believe me, it has been a long time since we both agreed with each other so completely on any issue. It took the hell of catching a flight to bring consensus in our relationship.
After five more hours of being stuck in a metal tube, we finally reach San Francisco. Our son was waiting near the arrival escalator. He gives his mother a big hug before turning to me, “You know Appa, every time you visit us, even after a short gap, you look so much older than the last time. This worries me.” Are you doing OK? How’s your health? I reply, “Son. Your mother and I just went through two airports and spent five hours in a metal can with wings. It’s a wonder we’re still standing.”
Ram S. Sriram
sriramgsu@gmail.com
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