Swami was fidgeting even before we entered the terminal.
The line to get inside stretched across the lobby, people shifting from one foot to another, waiting for security to let them in.
“This is ridiculous!” Swami muttered, pulling out his phone to check the time. “Half my day will go standing here. I should have uploaded my boarding pass on Digi Yatra.”
Across from him, Jigneshbhai calmly walked to the end of the line, folded his hands behind his back, and stood as if he had nothing else to do all day. He pointed to the Digi Yatra counters, equally crowded, and smiled, “Technology also needs time, Swami.”.
Ten minutes in, Swami was bouncing on his toes.
“Why don’t they add more personnel? Can’t they see this mess?”
Jigneshbhai looked around. “Mess? Everyone is standing quietly.”
“That’s the problem!” Swami burst out. “No one complains. No one raises their voice. If Raichand were here, he would have called the manager by now.”
I tried to hide a smile. Raichand somehow always made his way into Swami’s arguments.
By the time we reached halfway, Swami had conjured up three conspiracy theories:
“The staff are deliberately slow.”
“The system is designed to test people’s patience.”
“Someone ahead is pretending to lose his ID just to ruin my day.”
Meanwhile, Jigneshbhai took a sip from his water bottle, chatted with the man in front of him about cricket, and kept moving with the line, utterly unbothered.
When we finally reached the security person at the entrance, Swami sighed in relief.
“That was the most painful twenty-minute experience of my life.”
Jigneshbhai collected his ID back, pocketed it, and said with a smile,
“Swami, sometimes waiting is the only flight everyone has to take.”
Swami blinked, unsure whether to laugh or argue. I just shook my head and followed them into the airport.
***