Recently on a short-haul flight of about 50 minutes, I saw a young man. Well turned out, with a rucksack casually dropped over his shoulder, a coffee cup in his hand and a studious look on his handsome face. Every inch, the archetypal techie whom one can recognise from a mile away – especially if the flight’s destination is Bengaluru. He was the sort of guy, whose persona made one unconsciously follow him around with your gaze. And so it was that my eyes always came back to rest on him in the small departure terminal. It was stalking of the real world kind!
Over the next quarter-of-an-hour, this dude’s movements caught my attention. For starters, he walked up to the boarding gate to check whether he was at the right place. That there were only two other gates did not seem to matter. Five minutes later, he went back again, ostensibly to check whether the inbound flight was on time. A look of utmost satisfaction was visible as he sauntered across and sat on the seat diagonally opposite. Out came the ear pods and he got busy watching something on his smartphone. Well, there’s precious little that one can do while waiting for a flight on most small airports. Barring the coffee, the samosa / pakoda from cold storage that gets microwaved and served with some sort of sauce that might make the tomatoes blush a deeper red.
My gaze turned away for a while – maybe about 5 minutes. When it returned, our star passenger was missing. I frantically looked around and spotted him at the same departure gate. The personnel had changed – this time it was a young lady stationed there. He was doing a double check with her – possibly about the two matters that he had earlier checked with her colleague. She seemed exasperated but then served up that smile which seldom hides a customer service agent’s true feelings. Of course, only a customer with the capacity to discern can identify it. Our hero couldn’t care. His satisfaction levels went up significantly. But he kept his ear pods back and began twiddling his thumbs, carefully watching the ground staff arrange the boarding gate. His time for action had come.
True enough, the flight was announced and our superstar stood up, courteously allowed a wheelchair bound passenger and two families with small children ahead of him. And took his position right behind. The doors opened, and before the other three could have counted FIVE, he was inside the bus. No, he wasn’t sitting. Just stood there watching all of us lesser mortals follow him. He was the lord of all that he was purveying. The bus doors closed and the driver began his super slo-mo journey towards the aircraft – which was about 200 meters away!
The bus stopped, the doors opened again and guess what? Superhero was the first out and getting his ticket checked by the last of the ground crew we encounter at the stairs. The dude rushed up stairs, only to be sent back by the cabin crew as the aircraft was being cleaned and ground staff had to deplane. The superstar got back and began his favourite activity – twiddling his thumbs. By now, the rest of the passengers had queued up. Down came the ground staff and up went the Superstar – faster than any rocket that NASA or ISRO could send into space.
Finally, I got in and was surprised to find that he was on Seat No.1 on an ATR 72 Twin Turboprop passenger aircraft that has just one entrance. So, what was all the rush for? The seat is allotted and the rucksack was hardly of the kind that would consume an entire overhead cabin. Asking him the question was tough as I was seated on Row 18, which is at the back end of the aircraft – he was 17 rows ahead. Maybe some people just want to be first among equals – a competitive spirit drives them ahead (Remeber Viru Sahasrabuddhe from 3 Idiots?). Of course, I would never know if he managed to get out of the aircraft as quickly. Probably not, as there were 20 rows, each with up to four passengers who would deplane before. Poor soul! There was no way he could win this one.
I wondered what he gained from this exercise. No answers came. How could they? For, in my early years of flying across India – especially after private airlines hit our skies back in the mid-1990s, this was my template too. In fact, I recall flights where I would get to the exit even before the doors opened or as the aircraft was taxiing to its slot – cabin crew be damned! Finally I figured out why this dude with his cool attitude, his rucksack, and that coffee cup meant so much to me – he was my mirror image.
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