Security at airports

I read in the Hindu today that at last one lady had the courage to take up cudgels with the inhuman security checks at airports. She was traveling to Tel Aviv on Israel's national carrier El Al and their security had put her through their infamous security check at Mumbai airport. Brought back memories from my own experience a little over 3 years ago.

I was then in Singapore and was traveling to Tel Aviv via Bangkok. It was a late night flight and I'd read enough about the security checks to be on my guard but nothing could actually prepare me. To their credit, the security men themselves were always polite, answered nothing, just went through a thorough physical check of my entire person and my hand baggage. The hand baggage was actually checked in another room, so I don't know what exactly they did. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion and one couldn't see anyone else at that point of time. I figured I was a 'special' passenger.

I reached Ben Gurion airport the next morning and found out that my luggage hadn't arrived. El Al gave me a nice little kit bag with plenty of goodies and told me that my luggage hadn't connected from Singapore. I spent the sunday (a working day in Israel) moving about in a T-shirt and jeans from my travel. The luggage arrived on monday and was delivered to the Hotel. My clothes weren't in their set position and the little food pouch (I'd carried vegetarian ready-to-eat microwaveable food from Singapore) had been specially repacked. I found that each little pack had a tiny hole which didn't disturb any of the ingredients.

The trip to Israel was thoroughly enjoyable. I had a wonderful time visiting the historic places - Jerusalem, Nazareth, sea of Galilee, Haifa et al. But El Al was a different matter. The nation has surely gone through several travails and assaults on their internal security, but still there seemed to be excessive caution. To see teenagers carry guns in their backpacks was certainly not inspirational. The week rounded off with sabbath and for a foreigner like me, it was unusual, in this day and age,to see the entire country - people, machines and everything else just switching off! Everything upto that point was enjoyable but then when it was time to leave the country, one came back to the airport and the security guys and gals got going again. And how! They took the luggage apart with their plastic gloves and shook each little piece of underwear before putting it neatly back in. No complaints with them, they were only doing their job ... only it took hours for the queue to move ahead. Is this kind of security check going to continue for posterity? I definitely hope, for the world around us, that it's got to do with the difficult times that we are in, and more human ways of security checks can be implemented. Subject each person and their baggage to the severest security checks by all means but let's use hawk-eye technology and get the job done swiftly without the passenger having to regret undertaking the travel. World tourism needs all of us ! I might add that I had a little bonanza back in Singapore - Singapore Airlines, which did the entire scheduling and were partnering El Al, gave me a generous allowance for delayed delivery of baggage as per their rules !!!

Let this not discourage anyone from traveling to Israel - it is the land of milk and honey and has great places to see; and worth the wait on the long security lines in and out !

Landmark Quiz

Surprised to see my blog still there?! Me too! Visiting this site after nearly 20 months!!

Went to attend the Landmark Quiz at Chennai this evening. It was a humbling experience to say the least. Didn't make the cut by a long distance and getting further hammered every passing year. The grey cells are not working too well - we grassed some sitters.

Well, it's never too late! There are 2 more quizzes coming this month and there's nothing to lose!

Amit / Sarfraz : buck up guys; we have the Madras day quiz and Tata Crucibles in the next 2 weeks!