According to me, one of the most painstaking act is to go and receive someone at the airport who’s about to arrive from some long hauled or short hauled destination back to your city/ home….

It’s another thing when you go to see off someone at the airport—you wait for a while, and then the traveler buzzes off in that crowd for the check in formalities.But when it comes to awaiting someone with open arms, endlessly wandering around the Arriving Terminal, it’s a completely different story.

The glittering Arrival Status Board outside the Terminal is all that can be said as the waiting person’s “Information Point”. If the Board is showing up the status as “On Time”, then so far so good…..But, just in case the Board flashes the status as “Delay”…..then the waiting person’s patience is on testing grounds! And his cool, calm, and composure is in testing waters! ….

In that case, the ones who are waiting have no other option but to continue waiting…especially if they have driven down a substantial distance to be at the airport, so they see no point going back, and then coming again. With this contemplation, people wait and wait…They eat, they yawn, they wonder—at the back of the mind, they might even get frustrated a bit—but they wait—after all they have but no choice. They’ve chosen to test their own patience, so they feel—so be it.

But on a slightly less lighter note though, it is really one of the most boring things to do—to wait for somebody whom you are expecting. Now, the question is—Is Waiting for someone in other situations also to be compared to this airport wait. I mean, people wait for a friend to join them at a restaurant, people wait for a train/ bus to reach so they could board it, people wait for examination results to be out, people wait for a “most expected phone call”….etc…etc. So that way, there are so many “waits” which we experience in our daily lives.

But to come back to the question– I would plainly reply—those “waits” and this airport arrival wait is not to be compared literally. All are “Waits” no doubt, but still, you see, the degree of patience, or the degree of frustration or the degree of relief or elation you’d have when you would see that near or dear one arrive outside, those degrees vary. So the experience in all these, vis a vis this one varies, according to me. So the airport arrival waits are to be singled out from the rest of the waits.

Since I’m in that zone of been there and seen it all, I can most definitely say this very assertively.

Okay, so what options do the ones who go to airports to receive their near ones have? Should they just not go? No way. They should go, but they should try and keep themselves occupied all the while that they are expecting their family/ friends. May be carry along a book, a bite, music for company just to make sure that in case delays do happen, they won’t run out of patience. That’s the least one could do in such a situation.

So the next time you are toying with the idea of going to receive someone at the airport, do make a note of this “Delay” possibility, and do go prepared with all the activities planned out for you, instead of simply dragging your feet every two- three minutes to the Arrival Status Board, and hoping against hope, when you know that the delay has become inevitable.

Once you keep the occupational therapy for yourself up and running, your frustration will be less. And then once your friend/ family does arrive pushing that huge trolley, your degree of elation and joy will surely exceed your degree of sight of relief!

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