Airport Antics: A Tale Of Lost Luggage And Misplaced Memories

Let's say that I draw troubles like honey does bees. A phrase my college best friend Ruchi had once used to summarise me and left me impressed with her insight.

This incident that shook me to the foundation happened on a busy weekday at the Udaipur airport. It is a compact airport that doesn't see much action unless a VIP passenger or celebrity is travelling with a few irritable and gigantic bodyguards. It was one of those days when the airport staff had settled into the routine of listlessly frisking travellers, occasionally stopping when the metal detector shrieked only to discover a metal buckle or jewellery hidden from plain sight under an outfit. The conveyor belt moved on in the set pattern, and so did the screening machine. Everything was as it should have been, like a finely tuned operation.

Until I decided to walk into the airport with my luggage—a seemingly harmless cabin-size suitcase—and a chirpy colleague in tow.   

Of all my bad habits, the ruthless desire to give an ear to gossip exerts the strongest pull on my behaviour. Not that I remember the words exchanged to quote it elsewhere. Memory hasn't been my strongest ally — God, no. If anything, I'd love to record about 80 per cent of my conversations so that I stop remembering what they were about.

Anyway, without much thought, I prodded my chatty colleague to tell me about the mild dislike we had left behind. In this case, a celebrity we had just shot a magazine cover with. Her cribbing in a morale-sapping, soul-destroying fashion about everything around her had reduced our buoyant moods to grey mush. It was only fair that the two of us bonded over some benign, non-threatening bitching.

I was so engrossed in the conversation that I followed this colleague like the children of Hamelin following the pied piper. We collected our boarding passes, screened our cabin luggage, and navigated to the waiting area without disengaging. 

Time passed, and our boarding gate was changed. We moved to the new gate, and suddenly, my colleague brought to my attention the case of my missing luggage. I dashed to the previous gate, hoping to find it. But it wasn't there. It had vanished into thin air. As I haphazardly kept looking for it, my colleague enthusiastically joined the search operation—inspecting conjoined couples, squeaky baby protestors, and dandy stags. But none appeared to have accosted my luggage.

Baffled, as we tried to rack our brains, a well-meaning porter suggested we check the CCTV footage pointing to the camera overhead. Picking up on the clue, we tracked down the security officer with our tenacious request. And who doesn't like to help damsels in distress? As the officer patiently heard our story, I noticed a commotion near the screening machine from the corner of my eyes. Few people had gathered, including security personnel, curious travellers and a robust dog on a leash. I tried to return my attention and give it to the security officer. But my colleague, unable to resist the attraction of potential drama, walked towards the crowd.

The security personnel on duty had found unidentified luggage, and despite several blaring announcements to notify the owner, no claimant had appeared. They feared it might contain a bomb or something equally devastating—dangerous but an exciting proposition for a small town airport.

From afar, I could see my colleague break into a smile. She gestured for me to come over. And lo behold! What do I see at the centre of the commotion? My lost luggage! I had simply forgotten to collect it post-screening. A tearful reunion awaited, but the personnel wouldn't let me take it away unless I showed them the contents. I opened it hastily to reveal two of my favourite outfits, a bottle of perfume, my makeup bag and a pair of stilettoes. The lady constable standing next to me said with a sigh of relief: "Not the bomb, but equipped with the arsenal to create one."

Peals of laughter erupted on all sides. Something that I have now begun to accept nonchalantly as constantly entertaining strangers is what stabilizes my bearing in the universe.

As I re-packed my stuff into the suitcase, I couldn't help but wonder what Ruchi would have said about it—"I told ya!"

Chirag Mohanty Samal is a journalist with 19 years of experience working with national dailies and fashion and travel magazines