If there is one photo that explains my current situation, this should be it...

Chennai Airport: Breaking stereotypes with Burgar and Nudles

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!

Picture in Picture - Mona Lisa

 

Perhaps one of the most pictured painting, somehow when I saw the portrait in Louvre, Paris I could not appreciate it well. Rather I was amused by the craze of people to capture it within their camera. So i took pictures of them!!