63/ 100 Varanasi Airport

Varanasi Shastri airport is actually pretty nice as far as airports go. It was also the first airport I had been to where passengers were regularly dropped off by bicycle rickshaws; a little nod to the environment perhaps before jetting off across the country. If you saw my previous story you can read about our own exciting and varied journey from the city to the airport departures terminal that did indeed also involve a cycle rickshaw.

As is usual in India there was a long and disorderly queue to even get inside the terminal building, with police checking to make sure that you had a boarding pass, or a version of it on your phone. At the time, in 2018, India had fully embraced mobile phone technology, even more than here perhaps, and just about every travel document you needed could be scanned from your mobile.

Long lines like the one outside the airport bring to mind one of my (many) pet hates. How can people can stand in a line for 20 minutes, watching each person in front of them show the same documents in turn and yet, when they themselves arrive at the checkpoint, they seem to have no idea what to do? “Excuse me? I know you have just asked the 30 people before me to show their passports but now you also want to see mine? I did not see that one coming, officer. Let me empty my entire suitcase out onto the street so that I can find it for you”. It’s not just India either. Even in the lines for security in Glasgow airport there are always people who are disgruntled because they cannot carry 2 litres of water and their penknife collection onboard with them.

The very first thing we were confronted with upon entering the airport was a baggage security scanner. You are supposed to pop all of your bags through it before you even get to the check-in desk. A bit like pre-security security. There was a very long line of people waiting to get their bags x-rayed. However, what actually happened highlights a strange quirk that we have only seen in India whereby there are an awful lot of official-looking people available to do official things, but the public just seem to ignore them without consequences.

We followed the line of people to arrive at the scanner. The uniformed man in charge (with a very big moustache because he was important obviously) asked to see our documents. He saw our flight details and told us that we couldn’t pass through the scanner earlier than 2 hours before our flight time. I pointed out a long line of passengers beyond the checkpoint queuing at the desk for our flight but he just repeated himself. Being British, and brought up to always follow the rules, we slinked away like chastised school children.

After passing the time sitting in the sunny concourse, eating a myriad of tempting Indian snacks, I went to check on the progress of the line. I could clearly see more and more people for our flight completely ignoring the police and simply going through security. So, having perhaps acquired just a little bit of Indian temperament, I declared to Fiona that we were going in, no matter what.

We rejoined the queue and arrived back at the same man. He checked our documents again and told us we were too early, again, but this time the renegade version of myself put my bags on the scanner anyway. The bags went through the first part and the policeman said nothing. The bags arrived at the other side where another policeman put a coloured label on the bag to show it has been scanned. He said we couldn’t have our bags because we were too early. I copied the locals who were streaming past us and simply picked up my rucksack and walked off anyway. Absolutely nothing whatsoever was said.

I am not sure I will ever feel comfortable ignoring the rules but it seemed to be the Indian way of things and, I will admit, it did give us a little thrill for a short while. Ultimately I was glad we had broken the rules because things on the other side of the scanner were already chaotic, and were rapidly getting worse.