FOOD FOR A THOUGHT

This article was written on 15^th July 2013, a day after the last telegram in India was sent. Also at a time when I was head over heels in love with the Minions from the Despicable Me franchise. In fact, I still am very much in love with them. 

It was posted live from Bangalore Airport on that day itself at ManipalBlog.com

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Picture Courtesy: livingwiththemagic.com

Once again (and after a very long time) I find myself “trybbling” (typing|scribbling) at Bengaluru Airport… or as I often say, the airport without a name! I really wish I had something else to say about the airport, but apart from the fantastic steel and glass structure with the shiny stonework and everything else which makes one go gaga, the one thing I really wish is that they gave the airport a name apart from calling it simply as Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. We have an enormous treasure of great leaders and people who claim themselves as great leaders and I am sure none of them would mind lending their good names to the place.

On a second thought, maybe it is better just this way! Imagine all the names that could be given… *wink*wink*

Ahem! So lets see…

A casual observance, led to a profound thought this morning. As I was enjoying a pleasantly overpriced breakfast, I observed how well we have adapted to the self service system, where one pays at a counter then moves to a separate counter to take our food, place it on a tray and then carry it on our own to a table and enjoy the labor which we just undertook.

A few years in the past, as short as 8 years ago, this would have been a practice that would have been looked down upon strongly. One just did not carry his/her own food then. It had to be served. We pride ourselves in our culture where our food is served, drivers (chauffeurs for the elite) drive our cars and maids clean our homes, while some cook cooks our food. All this while… we do… I don’t know… What do we do???!!!

But coming back to what I was saying… yes… we eat our food… then we most pleasantly leave the tray on the table, for a cleaner to come and remove it.

C’mon, lets accept it. We have adapted ourselves to serve our own food. But throwing away the leftovers… Naah! That is just beneath us! After all, we are Indians. In the words of the former Chief Justice whose name I cannot recall anymore, we are a culture where throwing garbage is a work for the elite while the people who keep the city clean are the lowly ones.

How ironical!

And then I noticed another strange behavior. This one gentleman dropped one of those flimsy plastic spoons on the floor while carrying his tray to his table. He made an animatedly flustered face which was a complex mix of surprise and shame…quickly looked around to see if anyone saw the spoon fell… did not noticed me staring at him… then did a swift about turn to get a new spoon and quickly rushed to a table.

Now, this is a behavior that I noticed is pretty common. I really do not understand why we behave so whenever a spoon or a fork or anything similar falls down in a public place. Our faces emanate a look as if it is completely the fault of the spoon... how dare it fall down!

What I mean is that is it so difficult to just pick it up and throw it in the trashcan instead of going through such an enormous charade of emotions?

Once again I realize we Indians have weird social inhibitions.

We are trying to slowly ape the self-dependent society of the west where one does all their work on our own and although we haven’t achieved that status completely but somewhere someday we will do so… hopefully! *Sigh*

Before I end, a couple of things that I must mention…

Yesterday, the last telegram of the country was sent as India officially terminated the services owing to the change of times. In the words of the headlines in the DNA:

Telegram expired. 9pm. Sad.

The other point is regarding The Minions from the Despicable Me series. I feel they are the most adorable entities of this decade. If you still haven’t heard their own gibberish versions of “The YMCA song”, “The Banana Song” and the most amusing version of “I swear”, then I must say that you YouTube it at the earliest. And then you can consider using one of them as a ringtone… a thought you will regret as soon as your phone rings in public!

  

Now, I don’t know how to speak Minionese but let me give it a shot!

Papadom Papoye Bo Deep!

**Interestingly, the government of Karnataka renamed Bengaluru International Airport as Kempegowda International Airport just a few days after this post was published** 

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This article was first published in ManipalBlog, titled as "An Indian at the Airport." ManipalBlog is the largest and oldest multi-author blog based out of Manipal, for which I happen to be a contributing author.