When you become a city of the size we have, you pay a price! Traffic snarls, wanton construction, and loss of the old-world charm!
But you console yourself that with growth also comes progress … and then your optimism is shattered when you go to the Nagpur Airport to catch a flight to Doha!
Yes, It has the fancy ‘International’ tag now attached to it, but there is only this one flight to Doha daily.
The whole sad airport looks like it was designed by a PWD architect on a day when he had a nasty fight with his wife over her being flirtatious with the Zomato delivery guy. Hopelessly inadequate in size and senseless in design! And the silly additions like the ‘echoing dome’ haven’t done much to rid it of its ‘way past expiry date’ feel.
Stepping into the airport is like going back 30 years in time, Even the one attempt at modernisation, the newly installed Digi Yatra gates, don’t work!
Then there is the bag screening before checking in, which has been done away with years ago at every major airport, But is still followed here like a hallowed tradition!
There is only one local tea shop in the check-in zone, the sole books and the magazine kiosk just folded up because they could not afford the rent any more. The security zone is pathetically insufficient, but once through with that trauma, you can now enjoy a Costa coffee or a Haldiram Samosa at the departure lounge, But the only thing that sells well here is the God-awful Orange burfi, that all non-Nagpurians have been made to believe is a city delicacy.
Taking the lone international flight is surprisingly a better experience, you don’t have the long lines for immigration and security like at other airports and you can do the whole ‘check-in to departure lounge ordeal’ in less than 20 minutes.
But once in the waiting hall, the sense of shame returns ..: the pathetic ‘Lounge’ has given up the ghost and shut shop and the tea and snacks kiosk has also quit in a huff protesting the higher rent demands, so now one can’t even get a cup of tea there.
There is now only the ‘Nagpur Orange Farmers’ kiosk .. but they have absolutely nothing at all to sell, Except orange Barfi, (made by Haldirams, not the farmers), bottled water and orange and other juices! But when one bought a juice bottle, it turned out to be ‘Made in Thailand’, with crunchy fruit bits! The crunch fruit bits were really very nice.
The city’s great leaders need to do something about this airport, the mythical new terminal building has not even started construction and seems only a hollow promise to us citizens who have been waiting patiently for over a decade.
Wouldn’t this have been a priority over dancing (non-functional) fountains and cementing of already well-tarred roads?
But I guess, one mustn’t grumble and be grateful that at least we have a functioning airport, one that charges only 70/- bucks for parking and gives out free copies of Lokmat Times.
Landing in Doha a few hours later, the contrast couldn’t have been starker, From ‘village airport’ to a world-class terminal.
But here’s the thing … search as I might in Doha, I couldn’t find a single place that sold juices ‘Made in Thailand’, with those amazing crunchy fruit bits!
-Bits of beauty everywhere ( #BOBE)
@bits_of_beauty_everywhere