Worth the Wait !!!

The mom, dad & sister are here and will be here for the next 5 days. The son & the brother being the doting son & brother he is, went to pick them up from the airport. The sister being the sister she is, was the last one to arrive, after making the brother wait for more than half an hour at the arrival section. The brother didn't mind though. It was wonderful to observe the multitudes walk out of those gates ... wonderful and varied enough to deserve a blog post he thought.

There's something magical about the arrival section in airports. You see all kinds of people. Different ages, languages, relationships all crowd around a small gate, that, like the womb of the mother, lets out a face that cheers up several anticipating faces outside. I was reminded of the last scene from Love Actually, but Denise Richards's cameo was distracting the material for this post and hence I shook my head a few times and got back to enjoying the sights.

It is interesting to see how different waits can be. The kid next to me was waiting for his dad and the mother next to him was waiting for her husband. She kept glancing at her watch. She had dressed up more than usual. Clearly she wanted to look special for her man. The son was less interested about the arriving dad. "When will daddy arrive?" he asked a few times. But when his slightly tense mother gave the same "The plane has arrived. He'll come out any moment" answer for three consecutive times, he focused his curiosity on other things. "What's that man wearing mom?" he asked abt a kilted gentleman. "What does that sign mean?" "Can I go to the bathroom?" and the likes followed.

The young man on my other side, however, had a very different look on his face. Clearly he was waiting for a woman. His woman. The flowers in his hand left little room for questioning my conjecture. With every single passenger that came out of that door, the frequency with which he unknowingly hit the flowers by his side increased. His lips started making worried gestures and his finger followed the tune too.

An old Chinese couple just walked out of the gates and a huge group of people ran up to greet them. The crowd comprised of a good mix of children and grand children. They all took turn to exchange hugs. Sitting at least twenty feet away, I could still feel the warmth of the moment.

The Sardarji couple came out next. They looked like they were in their seventies. You would think that in their age they must have seen it all. But the moment they saw the three men who were diligently waiting just next to the railing (I'm assuming they were their sons) they echoed the same smile that the Chinese couple had let out.

And that's when I realized that there's something universal about these moments. No one teaches the child to run up to his dad when he walks out of those gates. No one taught me. No one taught the boy sitting next to me either. He forgot all abt his questions the moment he saw his dad walk out and ran up to him. The mother looked relieved too. She got up and started smiling.

Similarly, the moment someone comes out of those gates, and there's someone waiting for them, the first thing they do is to offer to take care of the luggage. It's universal. An act that crosses all cultural barriers. The first thing the three Sardarjis did was take the hand bag away from the old man. The first thing the eagerly waiting guy next to me did when he saw his lady love walk out (she was worth the wait and flowers btw :P) was to tell her "I'll take care of that".

These moments make me very happy. They make me realize that it's wonderful to be have someone who waits for you. It's wonderful to feel jaded and tired but to know that there's someone you'll soon see that'll wipe off all your lethargy with the blink of an eye. It's wonderful to return to those who missed you. Which is why you don't see people getting angry if they have to wait for three hours in an airport but see the same people get ragingly agitated when they can't locate their luggage in the carousel. Because by then the wait has reached its peak. Familiar faces are only a few steps away and every second matters. Which is also why you'll never see people who travel to new places and have no one waiting for them waste any time after they come out. You'll never see someone, who's all by himself, come out and take a little rest before carrying on. They all leave the airport asap. They know they are the minority there and they clearly don't like that.

It's wonderful to wait for those you miss. Waiting for my folks out there, I forgot abt the terrible traffic; I forgot abt the mess in my room; I forgot abt a lot of stuff that had occupied my mind. Seeing them walk out of that door (FINALLLY) just made things feel so right and it felt nice. Hmmmm! It's that time of the month when I get emotional I guess. Or as I like to say - man problems bonami.... man problems :-))