Mumbai Air Terminal Is Brilliant, What About Local Trains

By Teja Kumar | Mumbai

It looked like a hideous relic from the Soviet Union era. The main road along the various gates was typically dimly lit. Some tube lights flickered sporadically almost as if they were gasping for oxygen, screaming that they had done their time and needed to be replaced. In other pockets, there was complete darkness. 

As some slept in the passage, others pushed trolleys in or physically lugged their bags trying to pass through the narrow gates. If fate had been kind and you managed to squeeze inside Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in less than 40 minutes, then, once in, the overwhelming number of people crammed inside could easily make one wonder if the taxi driver had misheard the directions and landed up instead at VT station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus. What assured one was indeed at the airport was that ubiquitous marble wall that hadn't been cleaned for many months.

Ah yes. Long queues. That was mandatory. For screening luggage, at check-in and security counters, to pick immigration forms, to visit the toilet. Just that not many were sure which queue was for exactly what! But that hardly mattered. There was faith that the system would lead somewhere. Profusely sweating, next it would be the turn of claustrophobia to get the better of you. It had to. Remember those white wooden boards painted in cheap white paint? 

That was the incredulously low and creaky false ceiling with tiny holes meant to help ventilation. It's hard to forget the impressions left behind by the old airport.

"Are we in India or abroad?" That was the question we journalists were asking each other as we took a tour. Terminal 2 is simply world-class! It's smaller than the Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore airports but it still is spacious.

The beautiful yellow-orange glow is such a far cry from the dinginess of yesterday's tube lights. The huge pillars, the gentle arcs, the peacock feather motifs, the diya curtains, the artistic lamps, the matching leather seats and the 3 km art wall done up by art curator Rajeev Sethi. Someone indeed as though meticulously even of the minutest details.

What's most heartening is that the making of Terminal 2 once again shows we too can achieve excellence, enjoy world class infrastructure and surpass standards even set by the developed world.

Importantly, it proves we too can construct with an eye for beauty and aesthetics, something so obviously missing in modern India's architectural history. GVK's done a superb job.

That said, if annually 40 million air travelers can enjoy this Rs. 5500 crore bonanza, then don't 7.5 million commuters, who are forced to travel in inhuman conditions on Mumbai's local trains every day, also deserve much better facilities? Ten people, many of whom hang dangerously from the overcrowded trains, fall and die on the tracks every day.

Mumbai has lost out to other cities as it lacks decent infrastructure. We have such a huge coastline but still no inter-city ferry services. It's 2014 and we still don't have the monorail and the metro. The government of course is desperately trying to push some of these projects through before the code of conduct kicks in and earn political mileage.

But the millions who travel by locals trains, really hope, some day, our leaders will find them and their needs also as worthy as those who travel in the skies.