‘This was a bad, bad idea’ I thought to myself as I sat on the back of my friend’s bike with my head lowered against the rain. I had a flight home at 6:30 PM. How I wished I had taken the bus instead. We stopped near a shop and ran for shelter. Desperate, I called my brother in law and explained the situation. He told me to get an auto to Brigade road and that he will pick me up from there and rush to the airport. So after half an hour of gruelling, slow moving traffic in the rain, I stepped out of the auto with my bags. A few minutes later, Roshan showed up in his Santro and I jumped in and shook my wet head. ‘How will we ever make it in this traffic’ I asked. ‘Let’s see’ he said. It took us half an hour to get out of city traffic. The time was 5:30 PM. I would be late for reporting time but maybe I could still make the flight. Roshan drove like a maniac, pushing the Santro to its limits.
Miles of crazy driving later, we braked in front of the airport building at 6:00 PM. ‘Run. Run. I’ll park. Can’t stay here for more than 2 minutes. Don’t check in you duffel bag. Take it as a carry bag. No time’ He said. ‘Ok ok.’ I said and ran with my bags, not really listening. I skidded to a stop at the counter and told them my ticket number and got the ticket. Then I ran to the gate and tried to get in, but for some reason people kept pushing me out, coming in the opposite direction. ‘What the hell’ I thought and kept trying to push my way in. Finally a kindly elderly man said ‘Son’ and pointed at the board – Departure. ’Damn it. Where’s arrival’ I asked. He pointed across the floor. I thanked him and ran again. By the time I got to the check in counter, I had 10 minutes left. I didn’t really remember what Roshan had said about the bags, so I just kept saying ‘Cochin flight. 6:15. No time.’ The guy hesitated, and then asked ‘Do you have any sprays, shampoos, or anything liquid’. ‘Just get rid of any of that. I don’t care’ I said, panting. The guy thought for a second and then gave my bag back to me after putting a tag on it. My laptop bag was still with me and he gave me another tag. ‘I need this too?’ I asked. I hadn’t travelled by flight much. The guy just looked at me. ‘Whatever’.’ I said and ran looking for the security check thing.
I stood in the queue restless. When it was my turn, I put my laptop in some tray and put my backpack and the duffel bag through the scanner. Just before me, a foreign guy was being rudely told by the security guy to disassemble his camera and leave it in the tray. As I went through the metal detector, he came back to do it. I stuck my head back through the frame and asked ‘hey do I have to put my play-station in the tray too?’ ‘Play-station, railway station, put everything in the tray’ said the guard and laughed. ‘Smartass’ I muttered and went back. I went through the detector again and the guy who frisked me told me to go put my cell phone in the tray. Pissed off, I ran back again. Then when I went back in again, I remembered I had another phone in my other pocket and rushed back yet again red faced. People watched me with amused expressions. Finally I got through the detector and past the frisker, saw my backpack coming out of the scanner, grabbed it, stuffed my laptop and play-station portable and cell phones into it and ran, making squeaking noises with my wet shoe soles. As I ran, there was an airlines guy yelling ‘Hurry, Hurry’ from the side of the passage. I nodded and ran like the wind through the passage connecting the building to the plane. Unbidden, an image popped into my head - myself as a boy, running after the school bus, with other kids cheering ‘Run Sharath run.’ If this was a Bollywood movie, they would have showed the two scenes in adjacent boxes on the screen, in slow motion. I dashed through the open door of the plane and punched the air with my fist in triumph. The crew shut the door right after I got in. Smiling, I showed my boarding pass to the air hostess and she pointed me to a nearby window seat. I sat down and stretched my legs, still smiling ear to ear. ‘This sure feels good’ I thought as I settled down in my seat. ‘Damn this seat is comfortable. And so much leg space?’ I looked around. There was a curtain behind me and the window was at a comfortable distance to me to lounge back and peer outside. The air hostess brought me some wine and a few magazines. ‘Wow. I never knew Air India was so awesome’ I thought.’ I mean compared to that dingy flight I came in last time, with my legs cramped for space and chairs that reclined only on paper, this was heaven’. They gave me a nice lunch with chicken kebab and all kinds of tasty things and the food tray folded out from under the arm of my seat in a complex set of manoeuvres like a scene out of the movie ‘Transformers’.
After 45 minutes of relaxation I walked into Cochin airport and went to get my baggage. I stood at the conveyor belt, calm and happy that I was going home after a triumphant last minute dash like that. I checked my ticket and was surprised to see ‘Business class’ written. ‘Oh I got a free upgrade from economy. So that’s why the seats were so good’ I thought, laughing at my dumbness and continued waiting for my bags with the confident, and in retrospect – dumb smile of a guy who expected his bag to turn up any second. But as everybody else trickled out and the conveyor belt offered less bags than chicken pieces at our hostel mess, my smile faded. I stood there with a puzzled expression and started rewinding the events of the past 2 hours in my head – my brother in law’s advice, the check in counter, and the tags. ‘The tags!!’ I thought and looked at the one I was holding in my hand. ‘Wait...So this tag wasn’t like given so that I can recognize the similar tag on my duffel bag?’ My eyes bulged as I understood it was supposed to be put on my backpack and not as a token. ’But that means…’ I saw myself putting my bags into the scanner and taking only the backpack out of it and running. I gasped. “God damn it. So they don’t send that bag directly to the luggage area you dummy’ I thought to myself. ‘Of course they won’t. How the hell would they know which one goes to the luggage and which one with you?’ answered another voice in my head. ‘So the tag doesn’t give them that info?’ ‘No!! You IDIOT!!’ I swallowed and muttered ‘Uh-oh.’ Ten minutes later, I was in the office of an airport officer. ‘So you left your bag in the scanner and ran?’ he asked. ’Uh yeah’ said I. ‘I see. And what do you do?’ ‘Uh…I’m a management student’. He twisted his lip up in a smirk. His assistant came back in, ‘Sir. I called up Bangalore. They have the bag. They handed it over to airport security. They just finished checking for bomb threats and cleared it.’ I put my fist up to my mouth and tried to keep a straight face. ‘Airport security? Bomb threat?’ I thought. There was nothing but dirty socks and underwear in that bag, and maybe a deodorant spray. ‘I wonder if they called sniffer dogs’ I suppressed a chuckle. ‘Maybe they thought my deodorant spray was a liquid explosive.’ ‘You think this is funny?’ the officer asked, narrowing his eyes. ‘No sir’, I said, biting my lip. ‘You can collect your bag at lost and found at Bangalore when you get back. Now leave’, he said.’ ‘Yes sir’, I replied. On my way out I stopped and thanked him but he just sat there and glared so I left in a hurry, wondering how I manage to do these things.
A few weeks later I stood at the lost & found section at Bangalore airport describing my green bag. ‘Oh you’re the laundry bag guy’, said the girl, laughing. A few minutes later she handed me my bag and said with a smirk, ‘Congratulations. You created a bomb scare with just socks and underwear.’
Note: The blunders given above were performed by an experienced trouble maker. Don’t try this yourself.
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