It takes only 4 hours of flight delay to turn ordinary people into krantikari
crowd! It’s quite entertaining out here at Doha airport. Thanks to Qatar
Airlines. It was supposed to be 2.5 hours stop-over before changing the flight
to London. It’s been 10 hours already. And I am still hoping that I would finally
get to board the flight in another couple of hours.
Blame it on Injustice – Gods Among Us – that I was still waiting at a gate
from where the boarding was supposed to
start at scheduled time. And never realized when they announced the change in
departure gate and everyone around me already vanished long ago. I ran to
another gate, burning the free breakfast they had offered in the morning when
they announced the delay of 2 hours for the first time. This one was second
round of announcing the delay. I reached the other gate. I could see huge crowd
standing in the lobby from distance. As I walked closer, it got more
entertaining.
Mostly it was British crowd. First time I heard British accent so loudly! All
British sarcasm, anger, humor, mess, impatience and what not … it was all at peak!
Try imagining this…
The crowd was so close to the desk that the crew had to make efforts to
come out if they had to. Nobody would still nudge even a centimeter anyway. People
had started shouting from the crowd already. Some babies were crying too. I could
hear random voices from the crowd showing the restlessness. The crew sent out
the tallest man they had, in to the crowd to appeal for cooperation!
He made efforts to walk in to the center and said,
“PLEASE … STEP BACK. PLEASE
STEP BACK. YOU ALL ARE GOING TO GET A PLACE ON THE PLANE. PLEASE STEP BACK”
Needless to say, the
crowd didn't quite move. Someone from the crowd shouted instead.
“Let us step forward.
That’s where the plane is. That’s exactly what you guys are doing wrong!!”
Some random lady whose
voice was barely audible and who was hardly visible, also attempted to shout. “What’s
the problem with you guys? Why are you not doing your job!”
Not sure if anyone heard
her or not. But I found her advice very genuine! Wish if everyone did the same. :)
So many impromptu obvious
innovative suggestions were coming from all parts of the crowd. A few also were
attempting to ask what has exactly caused the delay. But nobody seemed to be interested
in answering that question.
I found my way to one
corner from where I could get a good view of the drama. There was some coffee spilled
over too on the way. People were cautious of it for some time but then they didn't
care anyway.
I saw a Happy Man there.
Despite all this chaos, this guy was literally sleeping on the ground, playing some
game on the phone! Absolutely not bothered by this delay and the drama! He just
knew, whenever they figure out some way, they would call him! I stood near him
and continued to watch the crowd.
One guy came at random,
pointed his finger at the plane standing outside and screamed, “THAT PLANE CAN
NOT FLY!! IT’S IMPOSSIBLE” and he disappeared. It was getting too difficult
to figure out who was serious and who
was not! But this guy made a few people quite nervous for sure! They started murmuring,
“I am not taking this flight!” The
other was more systematic. He found his way through the crowd past The Tall Man and reached
the desk. He asked the crew at the desk, “We want to know if the plain is
alright!”. The crew had absolutely no idea where this question is coming from!
I couldn't stop laughing but the guy asking the question there was still
genuinely concerned! Not sure how the crew handled.
The Happy Man was still not bothered at all. He was in peace with his game
on the phone. Damn, I was missing my game too! I walked away from the crowd to
look for some food and met a couple who was also watching all this from a
distance. Suddenly I got to know from them that all these people who were there
had a revised boarding pass and I was supposed to get one too. Apparently we were
not boarding the same flight we were supposed to get on. We were being “adjusted”
on other flights. Looking at the crowd, it was impossible for me to reach the
desk to get another boarding pass. I walked to other desks nearby instead, made
a chicken like face and they helped me with revised boarding pass.
Very politely the fellow said,
“Sir, This flight is full, the next one is
full too. I can put you on evening flight. Is it okay?” Like I had any
option! He reminded me that the boarding starts at 4:20 pm. My body knew Indian
timing, my phone knew British timing, I was only prepared to count 2.5 hours in
Doha before boarding next flight. I had no clue what is this 4:20 pm!
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