It’s peak holiday time at Terminal 1, Dubai airport. Schools have just closed for summer vacations and it seems to me as if the whole of Dubai is heading out of the harsh relentless heat. There’s a long line at the check-in counters.

Passengers bent double with heaving backpacks and trolleys piled high with bulging suitcases. People are going on holiday and they seem to be taking half of their household stuff with them. I would dearly love to know what it is. The line is moving slower than the earthworm in my garden back in Udupi. Or am I thinking of a snail? Or a tortoise with its heaving backpack?

Up ahead at the counter, there’s a crescendo of what seems like a heated argument unfolding between airline staff and a passenger. We crane our necks wondering what the ruckus is all about. I
am all for some excitement, as long as I am not the centre of it. Our curiosity is satisfied a few loud minutes later. Apparently, the man’s luggage exceeds permitted levels. He drags his suitcases off the weighing thingy and opens them right there at the counter, answering my million-dollar question –what do other people pack in their suitcases when they travel? It’s just chocolates, socks, boxers in numerous shades and several entangled chargers for the hundreds of gadgets that rule human lives these days. No surprises, I have similar stuff in my suitcase, except for the boxers.

Under the glare of the travelling public, the man proceeds to shift his belongings around. A pair of briefs and a couple of trousers are moved from suitcase 1 to suitcase 2 and some bulky parcels are moved from suitcase 2 to cabin luggage. He’s holding up the line while he plays suitcase-suitcase and irate passengers protest vehemently. The man is shunted aside and the queue moves forward again.

With my boarding pass, I am finally seated at the gate for my Indigo flight. I am travelling from Dubai to Mangalore.
While I wait for the gates to open, I make several trips to the airport wash room. I dread the WC in the aircraft. It’s so tiny I have to enter and exit sideways, holding my hands above my head and I am mortally afraid that just a sneeze, burp or fart and the WC door will burst open!

Meanwhile, the ground staff for the Indigo flight assemble at the boarding gate with official papers and crackling walkie talkies and at once, the waiting passengers surge forward. But the staff are
having none of that and they get chased back to wait for the boarding protocol.

The announcement fires up finally and everyone is up again, one foot forward like competitors waiting for the starting gun at a 100 m race. False alarm. The first boarding announcement is for
seniors and families with small children. Those who don’t qualify for the above now resemble bulls at a matador, snorting and stamping their feet restively for the flag to drop. Boarding happens slowly, zone-wise, seat-wise. Very systematic, very stream-lined. But passengers are either impatient, restless, plain ignorant or all of the above and they rush hither and thither like headless chickens. Some even queue up at an adjacent counter, giving us smug see-how-smart-we-are looks.

That line, however, is for a different flight. They get pushed out and they now want to join their original spots in this line. They get elbowed out here too. Ah, karma! The announcements are made in three different languages – English, Hindi and wonder of wonders, in Malayalam. For a flight whose destination is – not Kannur, not Cochin, not Trivandrum, not any of the freakin’ cities in freakin’ Kerala – but, Mangalore whose local language the last time I checked was Kannada. But clearly, I am wrong and the Gulf airports know better!

I am the last to board and probably the only Kannada-speaking passenger travelling to Mangalore, among 300 odd kannad gothilla (don’t know Kannada) travellers! I could have missed my flight. Thank God for English!

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