….

That’s what I want to call the antiquated, outdated, badly-designed-for-today’s-needs Bangalore Airport. The explosion of the airlines (er…am I using the right term?) has resulted in air travel being affordable to everyone….good. But it has also resulted in the Airports Authority (of Bangalore at least) being caught with their pants around their air-traffic ankles. The crowds are vast, traffic in the airport is chaotic, and announcements just cannot be heard across the cacaphony.  We had someone bound for Delhi coming all the way to the boarding gate…we were bound for Mumbai. He ran …no….streaked back the way he had come, hoping to be able to catch his flight.

The only thing that seems to have happened is that one pays Rs 30 for a half-awful-plastic-cup of coffee (“Madam! That is not even a dollar!” said the vendor when I protested. What IS our national currency now?) and proportionally high prices for everything else at the supposedly-glamorous coffee shops. Yeuggh. Parking fees are Rs.50 onwards. Last week a friend lost his windshield wipers too.

The Devanahalli Airport has been on the cards and the planners’ blueprints for about 15 years now. If the Tirupati airport can be named after Venkatachalapathy, the ruling deity of the area, then surely the Devanahalli airport should be named after Apathy, the ruling deity of Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.

Oh I HATE the politics that puts its fingers in the pie of progress. Couldn’t we send our airport planners on a one-way flight to the Indian Ocean?