Thoughts In Transit

You Know You're Heading Home When ...
1. You approach your boarding gate and the unmistakable sights, sounds and smells hit you.
2. You see women in brightly coloured salwar kameez or sarees, wearing Reeboks or Nikes, running after children.
3. Speaking of which, there are lots more of them around, compared to the next gate, and they are far more volatile and noisy than the few kids at the next gate, even on a per capita basis.
4. Men wear mustaches of different size and shapes and styles, and a lot of them use hair oil that leaves smelly stains on back-rests.
5. There are conversations going on in several different languages (other than English) of which you can identify at least 3.
6. There is an all-pervasive smell of B.O. which has managed to escape the feeble disguise of the cheap perfume which has been liberally sprayed-on to cover it.
7. You hear high treble sounds coming out of headphones and the guy believes in enjoying his bollywood (c)rap by grooving hard and shaking the bench you're sitting on.
8. Someone is using their mobile phone to set up an appointment for Friday 10 a.m. in Kandivili (E).
9. Young programmer-types (of which there are several) are comparing salary structures in their respective companies. One of them is already contemplating a switch.
10. While you're trying to decide between a Pinot Noir and a Syrah, everybody else has a bottle of Black Label in a duty-free bag.
11. When boarding is announced, they don't queue up - just stand around in a cluster, each hoping to get in first (regardless of whether their seat number / class has been called out)
12. Finally the airline staff forces a queue, and the guy behind you starts pushing even before the queue starts to move.

To Indians in Frankfurt (or Amsterdam or London or Singapore or ... wherever it is you're taking your last flight home from) feeling homesick, I would recommend spending a few hours at the boarding gate of any flight headed to India. It will give you a good enough dose to last a couple of weeks at least.