Want to know places where emotions of people are portrayed perfectly in the portrait of expressions/life? Airports, Railway Stations and Bus Stations... and they are the places I love to visit, erm.. once in a while!
Tears of happiness and sadness at the same time, expressions of love and longing, the look of an indefinite wait to the next meeting, holding hands that take an eternity to part... are all witnessed at one glance, especially in Airports. And I must say that I relish such moments.
Now the reason for me to write about this... Recently I went to the airport and I was taken back to those times when I used to stand and notice people welcome and bid farewell to their loved ones. I realised I hadnt done that in a long time. While absorbing each and every moment that was playing at the airport that day, I noticed a pattern...
Statutory Warning - I dont mean to play with emotions here but that was the only way I could keep my eyes wide open (in spite of all tears flowing down like a waterfall with the never ending yawns that kept coming) after having sat up watching movies the previous night till 2 and waking up at 7 to get ready to go to the airport... on a WEEKEND!
So these were my observations -
1) Play Acting - A plethora of emotions exchanged between the receiver and the guest/family/friend who has just landed. I got to witness instances where wet tissues were thrown left, right and centre... (And they continued crying till their tear glands got empty!) A group of 10 hugging 1 - wanting to reach atleast a strand of his hair and on doing so, feeling immensely proud of it... Families reaching out to their loved ones (while the kids reach out for the bags), a mild hand shake, a warm hug, a longing look, a secret smile, grandparents grabbing babies from their parents and the babies at the sight of the excited 'aliens' start howling on the top of their decibels... whoa! All a wonderful sight, however bad I make it sound :) So here, you decide who wins the best expression!
2) Parcing the parcel - Mentioned it earlier but will make it more clear. As soon as the guest arrives, he passes on his bags, mostly the trolley, to the person who has come to receive him. Some whole heartedly take it from them - probably wondering whats in for them and most of them wonder, 'Why me?! Grrr...!'
3) Ramp Show - Out of the 100 people that come out of the airport [presume 50 are men and the other 50 are women], some of them will wear coolers (who the hell ever said or 'felt' that wearing coolers were the coolest things!!), some eye blinding coloured shirts like they have dipped themselves into buckets of paint, while some smell like they bathed themselves in a shower of perfumes and the rest would be a combo of all the 3 mentioned above! And out of those 50 women, the oldies would flaunt the gold bought and the youngees, ie the present generation (unfortunately!) would show off the clothes, shoes or the horrifying lipsticks painted hearltlessly from left to right, handbags and even cell phones bought from there! So thats a ramp show for the receivers waiting outside (endlessly) for these cartoons to come.
/*Though I must say that there are some who are decently dressed, exchange pleasantries and wait to get home to have a shower!*/
4) Match the following - I found this the most interesting of all and my personal favourite! A friend/family comes out of the airport and waves or jumps or smiles or looks around and you match it to the person who has acknowledged it! Most of the time you would be right and the rest of time you would have the same expression as the one who is looking around for his receiver ;)
Well, these are all I could play till my guest arrived. And when he did, I won hands down in Play Acting and Match the Following! :D
