Travelling

So. Here I am, waiting. I mean, that’s generally what travelling is all about nowadays. Long transits, long flights, long lines.

But yet, there is a certain beauty to sitting and waiting in these huge crowds of people. Among them, you are nobody. It is here, that you are truly alone. It is here, that you can find yourself.

The dreary yellow lighting over here in the Hamad International Airport is rather conducive to the mood around here: people walking toward their gates, slowly and mechanically. Everyone wears the same, frozen expression. Occasionally, an announcement breaks the silence. Otherwise, the usual sounds of security machines beeping, walkie-talkies buzzing, and people talking in low, hushed tones blend into the environment, and soon we begin to stop paying any attention to them. Contrary to popular opinion, no one is in a rush. Things are planned to the last minute.

These dimmed colors and sounds put us travelers into a sleepy trance, in which our legs just keep walking for us, until our minds finally carve out a niche of a couple of minutes in these long transits. Commitments to family at home means that those precious few moments that we have to rest our weary legs are fewer still, with shopping to do at overpriced duty free shops, and sales that generally don’t mean anything to us. The only respite is the free Wi-Fi, water, and access to bathrooms.

We ordinary travelers glare enviously at those who can go up privileged escalators and elevators. We try to find the cheapest way to grab a bite to tempt our groaning stomachs, and find a spot to shut our creaking eyes.

In this rather boring place called the airport, there are, however, certain bright spots, which bring a smile to my worn and tired face. It is as if life always throws up things that bring back one’s belief in it. We never really truly lose hope. At this particular time, it is a playground, which physically is colored in a rather drab shade of bronze, but is filled with children of all colors. Children, here, are like a rainbow on a cloudy day. The smiles, the laughter, the running, the empty fears of the sighting of a monster, and the shrill voices, all serve as an antithesis to the airport.

Another bright spot is the food court. No one is as friendly as that clerk who served you in Burger King, well, because they want you to buy their burgers! Anyway, it’s not just about those unnaturally happy clerks. It’s about everyone. Everyone over there is eating, something which actively stimulates dopamine, the happiness hormone in our body. That’s why one would find more people smiling in the food court than in any other place in the airport (well, except the playground, because the children are always smiling). In fact, the food court makes the airport seem like a global community (however off the mark their food may be; ask me, I’m an Indian. Food outside India is never really spicy enough). The airport tries to make everyone feel at home, which is something that makes us as individuals feel special. An entity as big as this is trying to cater to us very small individuals.

As my tired mind runs out of descriptions for this airport, I begin to see something special about this airport (in fact, about all international airports in general); the “globalness” (this made-up term of mine is turning out to be rather useful) of this airport. The airport is one place where everyone is in harmony, no matter what or who someone is. It is a place of global peace. Why?

Maybe it is just finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Maybe its all about the simple acts of kindness that can mean so much more in an airport, than they might mean in your own community. Something as mundane as someone bringing you that belt you forgot back in security. Why go about finding such complicated answers to questions of peace, when we have one lying right under our noses? Literally, under our noses. Maybe its simply because the presidents and the prime ministers and the politicians of our nations don’t belong to this ordinary traveling class. After all, they all travel either business or first class, which is something most of us would do in the wildest of our dreams. Maybe it’s because they’re all the “snobbish people who go up the privileged escalators and elevators”, and cannot witness these ordinary acts of kindness that mean so much more at this unknown environment for everyone. Or maybe it’s the consciousness of the fact that this is a place no one calls home. It is this commonality among us, that helps us be at peace with each other. It is a place which is trying to provide the best for us all, for its commercial gain. Even though it may seem very capitalistic, in person, it actually feels extremely socialist. We all feel that we are equal, wherever we’re from. Again, even though this may seem very ordinary, it’s all about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.