Noise and fury at Kolkata airport

Subhash Rajta

Tribune News Service

kolkata, september 22

The Kolkata airport is a silent airport, and hence no boarding announcements will be made. One had barely finished reading the message, sent repeatedly by all the airlines to their passengers waiting for the boarding to start, there was a huge uproar at one end of the airport. It was followed by a lot of people running in one particular direction, screaming and shouting all along. It created some scare and panic among the passengers seated away from that noisy end, not knowing what exactly had caused the pandemonium. And then, all of a sudden, everything became crystal clear — the shrill screams of ‘Virat’, ‘Dhoni’ rang out to every corner of the airport. Alarmed passengers took a deep sigh of relief and sat down on their chairs; but a majority of them fished out their mobile phones and started running towards the scene of action. A few security persons and airport officials, perhaps realising that too much crowd had built up around the cricketers, made a dash to disperse it. Or so we thought! All of them ended up joining the maddening crowd, jostling and elbowing each other to get closer, and at least get a glimpse of the cricketers stuck somewhere in the middle. 

Even as the shouting and screaming continued until the cricketers boarded their chartered plane, the phone beeped and there was another message about the Kolkata airport being a silent airport. 

Well, yes, sure...