The new Mumbai International Terminal at the Airport.

The new Mumbai International Terminal at the Airport.

I recently watched a program on the Discovery Channel about the new International Terminal being built at the Mumbai airport.  It was supposed to be an awesome, audacious project. It was to be a tribute to the vitality and creativity of the world’s third largest economy.  I fly in and out of Mumbai quite often so I got to see this marvelous architectural achievement first hand. 

I was on a shuttle bus going from the Domestic terminal to the new International terminal when I first saw the building.  It was a very dark night.  As my shuttle bus rounded a corner, suddenly an eerie white glow of light broke the darkness. The new terminal’s lighting arrangement made the structure radiate light rather than just reflect it.  The pillars of cast concrete flared out near the ceiling to support a wider area than standard columns would.  There was a sculpture like feel to the look of the columns yet they seemed like they were formed naturally.  Almost like the skeletal remains of a monstrous sea creature.  It was a beautiful building.

The only problem about this beautiful new edifice is that it is located in India.  And it has the traditional Indian mindset of mismanagement  and inept employees.

The old departure terminal of this airport was one of the worst places in the city to get malaria from mosquito bites.   The place was infested with them.  You’d stand in line or sit and wait hours for a flight, and the entire time be swatting the nasty creatures, inside the building.  I told someone that at least that problem is bound to have gone away with all the tight construction practices employed when erecting the new place.  Well, shockingly, the new terminal has the same mosquito problem.  I was chased out of one quiet lounge area because the relentless mosquitoes were eating me up. 

The moving walkways are funny.  They are so slow that it is almost faster to walk next to them than walk on them.  And most airports have two  moving walkways side by side that run the length of the corridor connecting all the gates of the terminal.  One going in opposite direction from the other.  But in this terminal the both moving walkways go in the same direction.  So if you went down the long corridor to the wrong gate, you can’t hop on the walkway to get back.

I needed to eat dinner before my 16 hour flight, but I wanted to wash up first.  I found a men’s room and got refreshed then washed my hands.  Me and another Western man looked for paper towels to dry off with and realized at the same time that there were no towels, no towel dispensers or any dryers in the bathroom.  He and I looked at each other with that “it figures” expression.

The security system to keep dangerous objects off the plane was the same as I had just come thru in one of their old regional airports.  Just like in the old original airport, the metal detectors here were not operational.  (They even had signs on them saying they were not in operation!) You just walk thru it and stand on a wooden platform and have a security guard pass a wand over your clothing.  You don’t take off your shoes, belts, or anything.  The Indian security personnel are really big on paper luggage tags, however.  They want you to remove any old tags and if you don’t put a new one on each piece of luggage you will be turned back from multiple locations where that is all they are checking for.  I think I could have walked thru the airport with fissionable material as long as it had a proper paper tag on it.

The crackerjack security guys did run my carry-on luggage thru the x-ray machine a couple of times.  Then they pulled me aside and gestured that they wanted to look in my bag.  After several minutes of digging thru my stuff, the ace security agent found a small pair of round pointed scissors in my shave kit.  I use these to trim my mustache.  And the scissors will barely cut anything.  The security commando said these tiny scissors were illegal!  I doubt I could commandeer a jet airliner with them.  I doubt I could commandeer a little old lady wanting to cross the street.  The security agent seemed rather pleased with himself that he had potentially saved the lives of a planeload of travelers by foiling my hijacking plans.  I guess Mr. Rashna Barney Fife Mustafa,  or whatever his name is, will be employee of the month.  I can just see those tiny scissors, framed and mounted on a wall somewhere, with some red ribbon of merit attached to them. 

One of these days, the country of India will catch up with the rest of the world, but right now, needs to take the time to get the details right.  This beautiful building needs the details tended to.