BENGALURU : Back until the early 1990s, right behind heroines and models figured (no pun intended) air hostesses. They were women pursuing the most ‘glamorous’ jobs, where appearance was said to matter as much as, if not more than, aptitude. They had to be tall and fit, with the rightly visible makeup and smiles firmly placed on their faces. They had to wear outfits that flaunted their curves. They had to have well manicured hands, with attractively painted nails. They had to look warm and welcoming. Three decades later, not much of all this would matter now. Air hostesses can very well look like pharmacy technicians. Or ambulance drivers. Hidden behind PPE outfits, masks and gloves, they almost fit the part now when they go through, robot-like as always, the safety demonstration routine.
No longer would the airlines feel a need to hire fashion designers for creating chic costumes for them. All they have to think of now is where to place the company logo on the PPE coats. And that is one of the things that struck me the most this weekend when I travelled by air post Covid. All the crew members on board looked the same as each other.
And all the passengers behaved the same — as they did before. There was the usual display of hurry, right from entering the airport to exiting the aircraft. Nowhere did the queues show that social distancing was on anyone’s mind. Nowhere did sliding masks show that Covid was a nerve-racking concern. In fact, so casual seemed the approach of most people that the few who showed up dressed head to toe in PPE overalls shone bright, like little kids bobbling about as rabbits and ducks on a school stage.
It’s heartening for sure to see things regaining normalcy, with flights almost full, all middle seats occupied, people eating and drinking in the lounge, and eating and drinking aboard the plane. At the same time, it’s perturbing to see face shields cradled on the arm of someone who gives more importance to dozing off comfortably during the flight. Never before I think I have felt such constant surges of mixed feelings sweeping through me.
On one hand, it was moving to see so many first-time air-travellers nervously finding their way through the multiple routines. Carrying worn-out bags on their shoulders and wearing handkerchieves as masks, clad in faded T-shirts that were perhaps the best they owned, they inched slowly in the queue, trying to take cues from those pushing trolleys laden with expensive suitcases, and eagerly soaked in every on-flight instruction that the crew gave in Hindi. A heartwarming sight, for sure, but I couldn’t help wondering if they were driven to dig into their meagre savings to take an aeroplane due to a lack of train or bus connectivity to their hometowns.
I spotted another kind of first-time travellers too — newborns. There were at least three couples I saw in a span of three hours at Bengaluru airport who were travelling with infants younger than about two months old. There were a few other young parents of toddlers, struggling with preventing them from playing on the floor, or touching various surfaces. And there I was, wondering why I wasn’t so nervous about turbulence any more.