Airports are often doorways to cities and
sometimes to countries too, new airports built in India are getting bigger and
better, here are few things that crossed my mind while spending time in them. Overall I
feel it is hilarious that making the airports (doorways) efficient and leaving the rest of the
country crippled.
During
a recent India trip to India I visited several cities for the first time, most
of my time was spent either on the research institute campus or airport.
Perhaps some other time I shall write a review of research institutes and
interviews, this time lets talk about airports.
Lets
start with Chennai the closest to my hometown. Few months back when Chennai
opened its new domestic terminal ‘The Hindu’ reported that pigeons reside in
the terminal and water leaks from cooling units. Soon everyone was jumping up
and down saying how sub-standard the airport was build and etc., When I spend
sometime in the Bangalore airport there were sparrows inside the terminal.
Happily singing and flying back and forth, picking the passenger overpriced spilled
food. There were even some small shrub or trees (not sure if real), where the
sparrows happily made their joint. It could be that these things were left intentionally
to get a tropical forest effect. In my opinion Bangalore airport has succeeded
pulling of the tropical forest effect (better luck with Terminal-2 Chennai!!).
Hey Chennai, maybe try letting few stray dogs inside the terminal it would
better make the feel of ‘Singara’ Chennai.
The
outrageous thing and perhaps the most baffling experience in this whole trip
was the absence of idli-vada and its relatives in Chennai. When I checked the whole
terminal, there was not a single stall after security check offering
south-Indian cuisines. Wherever I turned I found Maggi noodles, Burger and
sandwiches! The most popular stall was Maggi cup-noodles of course! I even checked
with the stall person, about my desire to eat a Vada, he looked me pathetically
and showed the menu board which had only Burgar*, Nudles* and Sandwiches. No
puliyogarai and thaiyarsatham, perhaps the Chennaites have decided to break the
idli-sambar stereotype. Most ironic thing is except for Chennai, all the other
airports where I flew from had a strong presence of Idli-Vada-Dosa. But in other places I opted for Samosa,
Kachori, Vada pav, Puttu and even dum Briyani.
Moving
on to other airports, Pune has a small, cute airport, but far away from city.
Speaking of far away Hyderabad airport tops the chart of farthermost, but
perhaps the best airport in India. The highway leading to the Hyderabad airport
from city is really a nice drive. Delhi
comes first in terms of connectivity, the metro from airport to the city-metro station
is a wonderful experience, and hope Reliance keeps this way. One sad thing
about Delhi domestic terminal is that there are no book/magazine stores! Trivandrum has big, new swanky, eerily empty
airport, reminded me of unoccupied convention centers. But one thing all the
airports have in common, pretty women security personnel!
