An airport trip where I had lots of time on hand was the reason behind this post. It was lying in my drafts for months and today, while I was looking at planes fly overhead from the windows in my cubicle, it felt like the right time to publish it.
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Airports stir the most peculiar feelings in me.
There are tears, laughter, confusion, fear, excitement and hope with a tinge of the comic thrown in.
Flying alone for the last decade has given me the rare opportunity to observe thousands of people in this diverse ecosystem. The nervous first time flier, the almost irritatingly arrogant business traveler who will invariably will have more leg space than you, the teenager who loses her boarding pass every ten minutes, the woman dressed up like she’d be rushing to a wedding straight from the airport, the quiet one – who is either reading or doing something clever on their smartphone, the hypersomniac – nodding off on your shoulder (if you were so unfortunate) or just anywhere and of course the one who wouldn’t stop talking loudly on their phone.
Sometimes I find myself mildly amused, other times – bewildered at the behaviour of people. But I have to confess that, unfailingly, I happen to thank of Hugh Grant’s voice over in the Hollywood Christmas flick, and one of my absolutely favourite mush movies – ‘Love Actually’.
For those who don’t have time to watch, here is the what he says:
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of affairs of the world, I think of the arrivals gate at Heathrow. General opinions starting to make out that we like in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that.
It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy – but its always there – fathers and sons, mother and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.
When the planes hit the twin-towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge. They were all messages of love.
If you look around, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.”
Random happy thought on a not-so-exciting start of the week 🙂
When flying is for work in the wee hours of the morning, it is almost always a SAD experience 😐
@ Naween Bhaiya: I can understand that. But otherwise, I'm sure you of all people find airports fun 🙂
@ Akshay: 😀