WHEN I FLEW out of Bengalaru airport last week on a BA fright early in the morning, I took care to get what can be called a “juxtaposition” shot.
This carefully taken photograph below shows a full ashtray, a lonely soul pushing a trolley, and the Louis Vuitton suitcase which is not a walk-in restaurant, as some of my Indian readers have suggested.
India is banning smoking everywhere from the 2nd of October except for in the street.
The BIAL airport is suitably “iconned” – with Departures and Arrivals correctly signalled. Departures in Sanskrit is Prasthan – I can’t read Kannada yet. Arrivals is Agamana – that’s Sanskrit too but I think it means “coming”, not “arriving”. The two verbs are different.
I was struck at 3AM in the morning by some very very fat sparrows – we call them spuggies in Britain – who seemed to be enjoying the scraps from the Subway restaurant (pictured).
They’re inside the terminal too – opportunistic little birds them spuggies are. The wild dogs couldn’t be spotted this time round. They must have hunted in packs elsewhere, perhaps tracking down Easycab (sic) and Reliance Merucabs’ drivers while they were dozing, hoping for a fare.
When I went through “Prasthan” which I believe means “out of the country” in Sanskrit, I noticed that the bookshop was still not very well stocked. But the parfumiers, the tobacconists and the vendors of booze were well stocked indeed. Bengaluru is a charming place, all in all. The city council must prevent the wholesale destruction of beautiful trees. In Bengaluru there are wheelie bins, far more efficiently processed than in the UK, far as I can see. But so far without microchips… ♦
