Dear Old HAL

On the 11th of May, legend has it, the Bangalore International Airport will be thrown open to a non-adoring public.

Somewhere in the far distance, a certain Mr. Brunner gives his best impression of manic laughter, but that's the plan for the moment.

And as with everything else that is in the realm of the public cynosure, this too has generated a Mt. Everest's worth of newsprint.

Worry not, dear reader. Kulkarni couldn't care less about what people with an interest in public matters think about the move, and Kulkarni
does not intend to launch a diatribe either for or against the new airport.

But Kulkarni deeply laments the passing of the chaos that was the dear old doddering HAL airport. Truly, deeply laments.

Allow me the luxury of painting the strangers a somewhat delayed introduction.

Way back in the misty haze that is the past, HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.) built an airport far away from the city. IT (and that is no printing mistake) happened, and the city promptly upped and swallowed the area around the HAL airport. In the process, the wise men in the Karnataka government decided to use HAL airport as the city's airport. IT grew bigger, and people began
traipsing in from all corners of the world. With a brainwave that was inspiring even by the Karnataka government's standards (and they're a pretty intellectual bunch out there), HAL airport then came an International Airport. Broadly speaking, that's how it all happened.

And I haven't travelled much, but believe me when I tell you this: dear old HAL airport must be one of the most hilarious airports the world has ever had the privilege of hosting.

Plonked a little way away from Airport Road, HAL Airport is a whimsical collection of short squat buildings, on one side of which lies a runway that is just about long enough to prevent heart seizure for any pilot fool enough to land on it. On the other side of those short squat buildings lies chaos on an unprecedented scale. This is so because HAL airport was designed (presumably) to accommodate the occasional car that would ramble in from the main road, regurgitate its passengers, and amble out the other route. It was certainly not designed to handle all the traffic that Namma Bengalooru could throw at it. And make no mistake, when N.B decides to throw traffic at you, it does so on a mind numbing scale.

So at any given point of the day, HAL Airport chiefly consists of traffic cops clutching their heads in despair, people in cars honking away to no avail, and pilots standing on their brakes and saying their
Hail Mary's while landing on the tarmac. How it survives, nobody knows. Safety regulations are practically non-existent, and the only reason it hasn't been on the list of terrorists around the world is because it is, frankly, beneath any self respecting terrorist's self-esteem.

Cars, bikes, trucks, fuel trucks, fire engines, cargo vehicles, cabs and cows happily cohabitate the area outside the airport, peacefully co-existing in the traffic jam that is ever existent. At all hours of
the day and night, policemen huff and puff and plead with visitors, travellers, sundry citizens and varied animals to get a move on and go elsewhere, only to be pacifically ignored. Karmic peace, I assure you.

And apart from all those splendid reasons for being in everlasting love with dear old HAL, here's the clincher.

As with all modern airports the world over, dear old HAL has a restaurant in its welcoming premises. Situated a little away from the airport, on the far side of the traffic jam, Bageecha is a restaurant
that is open for 24 hours, seven days a week. It serves food that is best eaten by stomachs made primarily of cast iron, and it also boasts of a chai tapri serves chai at all hours of the day and night. We used
to go there to buy the coke to accompany our rum at three in the morning - and this alone is reason enough for me to shed a tear.
But the reason why I'll miss Bageecha is this - it can still be seen on Bageecha's menu:

Yes it is closer to home, far closer, than BIAL will ever be. More convenient, closer, more approachable, no UDF and all that. Yeah.

But I'll miss dear old HAL because... well, in spite of all its faults, in spite of all its shortcomings, dear old HAL was endearingly eccentric, frustratingly fussy and incurably irritating. It was almost
human, it was.

And if a certain Arthur C Clarke was still alive, he'd have nodded sympathetically.