Today my experience at T1 airport terminal Delhi reminded me of ISBT Delhi…. Many years back I used to be a frequent traveller on the inter-state roadways buses. And the favorite spot to board the buses in Delhi was none other then inter-state bus terminus generally referred as ISBT by Delhites. At that time ISBT used to typified with queues, crowds , chaos and hustle bustle 24×7 without exception of any day. To start with one had to stand in long queue to get the ticket for the bus, then wait in a queue endlessly for your bus to arrive. And when it finally arrived some people would break the line and make a dash to enter first. After these few super  smart guys darted in, the others( not so swift ) would urge people to form another queue and thus the sober ones would quietly form another queue and the boarding would commence properly. However, when one reached inside one found that all the coveted window seats were either occupied by the super smart travellers or they had kept their handkerchiefs to reserve it for their accomplices. So willy nilly I found myself sitting on the last row upright seats , which would make my 5-hour journey to Dehradun into a bumpy ordeal. Hopefully , I am told the things at ISBT now have changed a lot and are much more streamlined.

Today morning when I reached the T1 airport I was welcomed into a maze of crowd even at 6 am. The alighting area was full of cabs/cars and there were security people who were busy pushing the cars out and were not even allowing people to say a warm goodbye to each other. The next bottleneck was at the entrance gate. The police personnel detailed there was busy in checking the tickets. The multimodal forms of tickets namely paper, e and mobile only increased the confusion and delay. Some passenger had ticket stored in the mobile but the battery had gone dead. He was struggling to plug-in his device somewhere to extricate it, so on and so forth which resulted in a long queue. After the first victory at the entrance gate I was greeted by a heavy rush at the big check-in hall. There were queues and queues at every counter. I had to literally align myself to find the right counter for check in. The right counter too had a long queue and of course these queues also had some smart guys who were able to jump the queue albeit with help of the airline staff with some pleadings and excuses. This indeed caused chagrin to us who were waiting endlessly for our turn. After taking the boarding pass I thought the ordeal was over as I had already spend almost an hour at the airport but it was not. As I rushed towards the security check area I was aghast to find a long queue there too. So I had to again apply brakes to my speedy moments and wait patiently. The security personnel were polite and diligent in their work , I feel the cause of the delay was that they were less in number. By the time I finished the security , it was time for boarding. I rushed to the gate, especially because a few days back I had read a news report that some airlines had left some passengers who had not shown up at the boarding gate on time. I reached the boarding lounge and was shocked to see it buzzing with activity at 7 am. Some announcements were going on but one could not make out what is being said , just like ISBT many years back. The chairs were less and many people were either standing or sitting on the floor. Suddenly without any announcement I saw a long queue forming up at my gate. When I queried I realised it was for my flight. So for the fifth time, and hopefully the last one, I again stood in the queue at the boarding gate. Slowly the line executive started scanning the boarding passes . After the scanning process I came out and found another queue. “This queue for what ?” I asked the person in front. “For boarding the bus” he replied. Soon the bus came and like obedient school children the queue ambled towards it. The bus took us to the parking bay and finally after almost 2 hours of standing in queues I had the first glimpse of the aircraft in which I was going to travel. ‘Wow’ I said to myself with a sign of relief . But the moment I debussed, I was shocked to see passengers queue up again… for another round of checking at the bottom of the stairs. So finally after two hours of rueful experience and punishment to my knees I threw myself at my seat. And closed my eyes wishing myself a safe journey.

I wondered whether things have changed at ISBT or just  changed places?