The Arrival hall

Today I had the delightful privilege of spending close to an hour at the arrival hall at Changi airport. Not exactly my idea of fun but surprisingly, it actually was. Yes I need to re-think my social life but lets hold that thought. It's one of those few places where you get to see raw, unalderated human emotion in action. When your surrounded by total strangers and you think no ones looking, your not on guard and your face and body easily reflect what you're thinking. No one's watching anyways, cept me of course. I started with the baggage carousel. The next time you're out there look out for the ones who've just gotten their bags.

Its an intense moment when you check your stuff to make sure you got everything, baggage count? 1-2-3-4 check. Passport? wallet? Cell Phone? some moments of fidgeting with your pant pockets if you're a guy (which looks like a stiffer, jerkier version of the macarena if its a more thorough search with all pockets coming into play) and digging into your handbag if your a female which takes slightly longer cause it involves pushing aside the lipsticks,curse that mascara, shove the little mirror, "damn it where's that passport? ooh theres the clip I was looking for last week, Jignesh picked such a nice one for me, that guy's something special, he's the only one who really really understands me. I wish he'd ask me out, if only that ***** Kavita wasn't so damn pretty, he'd probably have been all over me by now, hmm this blue book looks familiar... Passport!" and it only took 7 minutes. Oh brother.

So there's this woman who's just lived through this episode and she's onto her next mission, finding the uncle whose come to pick her up. What follows is a public scrutiny, she scans every face and an advanced algorithm kicks in to perform a face match with prior data loaded from memory. Would have been much easier if the last time she saw him wasn't way back when she was 7 years old. Uncle probably has a shiny scalp and a pot belly by now. The mental face match algorithm also tries to include this information but it slows things down a bit. Faces that are easily rejected by the algorithm are brushed aside without a second glance and no eye contact at all. Its a fleeting glance that in one smooth motion renders a sea of faces totally worthless. You could turn to dust right there and this woman wouldn't give a rats rear quarters.

Some faces get a little more attention, the smooth panning stops goes back two faces to the face of interest, a small pause, and then a vertical scan is done and the guy gets measured up in less then a second, the algorithm isnt satisfied, thats not uncle. The guy gets an almost apolegetic fleeting expression which seems to say "Man, I wish you were my uncle, you were almost there, but you just didn't make the cut. Sorry". Thank god I didn't look like no uncle, I would feel so exposed if I had to go through that.

And then comes the aha moment, eye meets eye and the algorithms already sent its affirmations to every muscle in your face. If there was one moment that would put Edison's invention to shame it would be the bulb-like flash of that smile of acknowledgement. Any fatigue of the six straight hours of torture sitting in those awful limp seats with your knees in your chest, lousy food and murderous pangs of boredom all vanish as you stomp your way towards the exit door. The burst of energy in that walk is phenomenal you could put a goat in that womans path and she'd walk through it leaving behind platefuls of kababs on skewers and a glass of goat milk.

And that brings us to the Exit door, the customs official couldn't be bothered to pick on the woman because she doesn't look suspicious or the smuggler type. I'd love to hang out with one of them some time. I'm sure these sizing up skills would come in handy.

Moving on, you get introduced to one of the most painful tasks that anyone could probably get, that of a taxi driver holding up a sign with the name of the man who's probably dilly dallying in DFS waffling between the 2004 Cabernet or the 2005 Merlot (the cheap *******). The sheer boredom in those faces tell you that these were once men who looked at every face coming out that door with hope and anticipation in their early days but experience had taught them a bitter lesson and now they lay at the mercy of their fate, uninterested until the right man came out and signalled to them, twice maybe thrice before he woke them from their zombie screensaver like stare. Every now and then you see one guy holding up a name sign with a smile plastered across his face but dont be fooled, his face has been stuck that way for the last 5 years and he would have that expression on even if it was a root canal that he faced. Years of torture does that to people.

I could go on and on ( and I probably have ) but its just so awesome to see the nervous, anxious excitement in the face of that man from India who can't believe his luck that he got to come to Singapore from a small town in Tamil Nadu to make a better living. The sense of achievement of completing his maiden flight still filling the dimples in his cheeks. Ever noticed the relieved look on the airhostess's faces when they walk out, erasing thoughts of the persistent demands for a spoon, coffee, water, napkin etc. not to mention the annoying passenger who insisted on using the loo just when the plane was about to land, blocking his path and as politely as possible denying him his natural instincts and forcing him to return to his seat and buckling up. Imagine living with the grief and agony of doing that. Not to be missed also is the proud beam of the captains as they share a joke while walking out, backs straight and chests puffed up, content to know that they were indispensable in this operation and they did a good job getting everyone home in one piece.

Life goes on and the same scene's probably starting at another gate down the aisle, nevertheless my business here was done and it was on to another fascinating setting, possibly my favorite, the Singapore taxi ride. But thats a story for another day. Over and Out.