Anjuli Bhargava: The peace quotient

OUT OF THE BLUE

I don't know if you have ever noticed this but there is an amazing quality found at many Western airports "" Munich, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Vienna, to name a few "" which is singularly absent at all Indian airports. This is the silence and absolute peace that appears to reign inside the premises.

At Hong Kong and Singapore, I have to resist the urge to pinch the people manning counters to check if they are alive, so wooden and unchanging is their expression. They barely utter anything to you and if they do, I am always straining to catch what was said. At Frankfurt, the gentle, sing-song voice of the Lufthansa flight announcers can actually lull one into a deep sleep. At Munich, you could hear a pin drop in many parts of the airport. I have often felt like breaking into some yoga pose, so meditative and mellow is the environment. Passengers too seem decidedly odd to me; they smile for no reason at all, are happy to wait their turn and speak in polite tones to the staff and each other.

I have finally understood why. It is simply because Indian airports are so loud that one is used to screaming to get one's point across or at least one is used to hear someone screaming at any point. In the check-in area, it's usually the airline staff, which can never seem to decide which counters are open and which are shut when. This situation has worsened with many first-time fliers unaware that check-in baggage must be X-rayed before they check in.

While you queue up for security, it is usually again the airline staff which is screaming for those boarding a particular flight to jump the queue and board, else the flight will be delayed. And then when you get through and are waiting in the security hold area, you are almost always bound to hear some passenger screaming as he realises the extent to which his flight has been delayed and the consequences of the delay begin to sink in. I have seen passengers blowing their fuse and man-handling low-cost airline staff on being informed after a three-hour delay that their flight, in fact, stands cancelled for the day. I am always worried that someone will have a coronary attack, so violent is people's reaction at times. Tears, shouts, threats and raised blood pressure "" it is all part of the experience at an Indian airport. Everyone scowls at everyone else, curse each other under "" and many times well over "" their breath, break any queue that can be broken and also jointly curse the airport staff, airline, the government and whoever else they can think of at the moment.

Once in the security hold area, if you close your eyes, thinking you may as well rest for a brief second while you wait for the boarding announcement, either in a chair "" or nowadays quite often on the floor "" a strident and insistent voice will shake you out of any reverie, informing you through the now-you-hear-me, now-you-don't public announcement system, that this is really the last and final boarding call for such-and-such flight leaving for so-and-so place. I once counted 18 such final announcements for the same flight and contemplated murder for the first time in my life.

In addition to this, there is almost always some crises at any airport. You see several people screaming into radiophones (which are clearly malfunctioning, judging by their pitch and volume) while running helter-skelter. This could be an ill passenger, a malfunctioning X-ray machine (almost a daily occurrence) or, on rare occasions, a more serious aircraft- or runway-related disaster. That's when (the third situation) all hell breaks loose. It's not a time for the faint-hearted to be inside the terminal.

That's why when I visited the new Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad on February 4, I was overjoyed to see what they call the airport operation control centre (AOCC). This room closely resembles one's notion of a spaceship, full of innumerable computer screens and typically what you see the American FBI agents operate out of in Hollywood films when they "have a situation". The airport authorities say it will be the "nerve centre" of the airport. It will manage, co-ordinate and allocate all airport resources. It will be the airport's eyes, ears, and its trouble shooter. It will handle all problems within the airport terminal with a click of keyboard buttons. It will isolate any serious crisis and deal with it from here. It will handle fire emergencies, medical crisis, tyre bursts and even a hijacking. Short of delivering your baby for you, it will bail you out of any possible situation.

It sounds way too good to be true, but if the AOCC achieves even a third of what it promises, flying in and out of an Indian airport may just be a quieter, calmer and, maybe someday, even a pleasurable experience.