Counting Down to 90 - Week 1556 - Beauty in Chaos

The Concept Explained

Counting Down to 90 - Week 1579

Why 1579

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

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The first time we went abroad to the US, about 20 members of the family came to drop us off. In those days (1994) extended farewells at the airport were the norm. We were going away for a year and there was a lot of “rona-dhona” before we entered the terminal. When we returned in Jan 1995, it was the same scene. Fewer people, but still…both sides of the family turned up to pick us up.

Over the years, these airport drops and pickups by us or for us have dwindled. It is a sign of the times that we place practicality ahead of emotions and with easily available cabs and sometimes long distances and often night-time travel, it isn’t easy or practical to make the commute to the airport and then return home.

The last time I went to drop someone to the airport was in Aug 2020, when the kids went back to the US to study during Covid. There were hardly any crowds, everyone was wearing PPEs and we had to say our goodbyes and then stand a long distance away until they entered the terminal. Then we had to go home.

I don’t remember the last time I went to pick up someone…Saturday night I decided to change that and went to pick up close family. 

It was warm, but not too humid or hot, so waiting outside the arrival gates wasn’t a challenge. The airport was busy and pulsing with life. People moving in different directions, the bright lights, the cafes and one bar, the honking cars in the parking lots, the background sound of the waterfalls, the fans and the low droning hum of people talking...all added to a controlled chaos. But within that chaos was the beauty of reunions, of meeting your loved ones. The title of this piece, “Beauty in Chaos,” comes from a post on Reddit, titled “The Crossroads of Human Emotion.”

I kept looking at the people coming out for over 45 minutes.

Some, mainly solo business travelers, would hurriedly walk away towards their cars or cabs, but a good number had people come to pick them up…these people would come out of the door and wait and look and then scan the crowd in front of them to spot that one person or friend or family that was waiting for them and when they saw them, there was that smile on their faces, a mix of relief and pleasure and joy at seeing their loved ones waiting for them that was in turn a delight to watch. One girl and her friends made so much noise, hooting and screaming, that everyone craned their necks to look at them, smiling at that show of unbridled emotion. One woman in her 30s pirouetted in front of her boyfriend/husband who she had come to pick up, before hugging him strongly. There were lots of hugs, some handshakes, fewer kisses. 

Our need for human contact makes us who we are. The same is true the world over, as these columns from the WSJ and the Guardian attest to…the airports are special places where these displays of emotion, especially the joy of meeting your loved ones, are at their highest. 

I surprised the person I had gone to pick up, and it was a pleasure meeting them after an extended period of absence. Their smile and lit-up eyes said it all.