Travails of the Traveling Salaryman

My Uber car finally rolled up the elevated road towards T2 Airport, Mumbai. The not-so-long drive from BKC ended up being an hour and a half long, thanks to the Friday evening rush hour traffic. I was just in time for the 8:40 Jet flight to Delhi. After fumbling with the phone for the e-ticket at the Airport entrance, the security guard tested my patience, by looking and re-looking at PAN card and the ticket four five times, finally letting me go, disappointed he could not make a ‘case’ out of me. !. 

The young lady at the Jet counter had a glum look on her face. My request for an upgrade met with a "Cant-u just-checkin-and move on-Mister !' look. She confirmed that there were no seats in business. The queue at the security check was a killer one. As one wise man once said "Ttry to avoid as you may, when you are destined to be in the longest queue, the whole world will conspire for you to get into one!!". The sardarji in front of me, it seemed, had been collecting coins from all possible sources through the day and kept them in all possible pockets. Reminded me of my coin collection back home, time I organised it!. With the dreary thought of the meal in economy, I decided to make a rush for the GVK lounge, for some warm meal before heading to Gate 42A.

The Lounge, unusual for this time of the day, was brimming with passengers. The old executive with the over sized suit was dipping roti into the steaming hot dal. The gentleman in striking pink shirt had his face buried in pages of the ET. The lady in pin-stripe business suit was giving some final touches to her already heavy make up face. Not sure whom she hoped to meet on the late night flight.. not me, I hope !! Ahem ! The twenty-something guy was walking briskly around the table, headphones dangling around, trying to convince his boss, that he will cover the 50% gap in target in last three days of the quarter.. Good Luck to you man!!  

As I was about pour myself some curry, a big, burly man walked past, accidentally hit my shoulder, bit of curry spilling onto the floor and my leather shoes. Too busy for even a word of apology, the man just carried on, not realising the degree of damage done. The lounge staff immediately noticed and rushed with some napkins, to minimise the damage on my brand new Clarks.

After quickly finishing my meal and a small bite of the cake, I picked a bottle of water and rushed towards the gate. Unknown to me, the evening had more drama in store. Under the guise of being a 'silent airport', authorities don’t announce flight delays. On reaching the gate, realised the flight was twenty five minutes delayed. Apparently, the 'single functioning runway' at Mumbai airport was now a permanent fixture. Some finance whiz at the airport must have concluded that optimal use of single runway is more economical than building a second one!

Forty five minutes later, it was almost 10pm when we finally boarded. My hunger for food and drama both well satiated, I opted for the DND sign and decided to take a nap. When I woke up, plane was hovering around Delhi airport, awaiting signal to land. Synonymous with the single runway issue in Mumbai, landing slots for delayed flights in Delhi was another pain frequent fliers had become used to. Finally, the flight landed at 11:30, almost an hour behind schedule. 

The last act of the day was to get the ride back home. After juggling on both Uber and Ola, I managed to get an Uber fifteen minutes away. More difficult than getting a PO from an Enterprise customer, is to convince a cabby in Dwarka, to drive the 5 kms to T3. At my convincing best, mister Raju driver finally obliged, reached the pick up point 10 mins later at the famous 'last lane T3 Arrival, near pillar no. 5' . Apple must have paid a hefty premium for the billboard there, with every other driver using that as a de-facto landmark. Dumping the bag in the front seat, i jumped into the back seat, reconfirmed my destination and dozed for the last mile ride home .....