Shashi Warrier | In the name of flight security

It’s strange what they do in the name of security. You don’t notice it much of the time but if you happen to need to fly somewhere and you’re not used to it you could get into big trouble.

On Christmas day 2022, my wife and I had to fly to Bengaluru. The last time I’d boarded a flight was back in 2019, just before the pandemic. Besides security checks, I was worried about the airline, for we’d been reading stories about how this particular airline didn’t hesitate to beat up passengers.

I’m terrified of guns. At the airport, the armed soldiers at the entrance looked carefully at the e-tickets on our cellphones, and then our Aadhaar cards and our faces, and, perhaps to their disappointment, found nothing wrong. We managed to get our suitcases through the scanner and got ourselves checked in at a counter where a glacial young lady again peered at the photographs on our Aadhaar cards and then at our faces. She, too, failed to find fault, and handed us our boarding passes with a mechanical smile.

We were early and I was relaxing with a cup of outrageously expensive coffee when I realised that we still had to go through pre-boarding security. That meant, after ten more nervous minutes, standing in line, and placing your possessions in a tray. This, for me, was simple: my worn waist pouch holds my cellphone, my old wallet, a collection of small bits of paper that I should have thrown away years ago, and a miscellany of coins, pen drives and other little odds and ends. I stood spread-eagled whilst a uniformed paramilitary soldier passed a magic wand along my limbs and inspected my belt buckle before stamping my boarding pass, waving me on when he was done.

Phew! Nothing so far!

But it ain’t over until it’s over. The conveyor belt carrying my pouch froze, and so did I. A long while ago, in the US, a few months after 9/11, I’d got into trouble for carrying a nail cutter in my pouch, but I’d remembered this time to put it in my suitcase… I couldn’t think of anything else that might get me into trouble. In any case, I went to the counter where a young lady in uniform was inspecting my pouch. “There’s a paper cutter in here somewhere,” she said sternly, standing arms akimbo.

Cooperate, I thought frantically! I picked up the pouch and handed it over. “Look wherever you like,” I said. So we went through all the little pockets we could find — and this pouch had about a dozen of them. No paper cutter.

The young lady put the pouch back on the conveyor so her colleague could look at it again with the x-ray machine. He shook his head and pointed at his monitor. “There’s a paper cutter in there,” he said. “Check it again.”

I couldn’t see his monitor so I had no idea where the alleged paper cutter was. When the lady came back to me with the pouch, I laid its contents on the counter — my wallet and keys and phone and those papers — and had another look. And, found, hidden away, a pocket within a pocket, where I presume you’d hide secret papers, which I don’t have. And there, instead of papers, lay a slim red folding knife with a rust-spotted two-inch blade that I’d used occasionally to cut fruit while travelling...

The lady gave me a look of loathing. “Didn’t you know this was in your pouch?” she asked.

“I forgot,” I mumbled, like a six-year-old facing a furious schoolteacher.

She glared at me then, as if she’d have enjoyed emptying her colleague’s submachinegun into me. I fancied I saw her fingers twitch, but she restrained herself. Instead, she confiscated the knife, made an entry in a book, and handed the pouch back to me. “Go!” she ordered.

I went. I gathered my belongings, stuffing them in the pouch any which way, and hurried away on trembling knees to the escalator to the gate, away from that menacing glare.

We were still early, and, up in the waiting area by the boarding gate, there was time to relax. I acquired another cup of coffee and sat quietly down to wait for the flight to be called.

The peace didn’t last. As I began to sip the coffee, I saw the lady in uniform come up the stairs, holding up something that glinted, looking for someone amongst the waiting passengers. As I sat back to watch, her eye fell on me, and her eyebrows joined in a frown. When she neared, I saw in her hand two keys: keys to my house and my bike. “Yours?” she asked.

I nodded, unable to speak for fear of being shot, or, worse, arrested.

She handed them to me and said, still frowning, “There are other lost items at the security check counter. Come with me and see if there’s anything else of yours.”

I followed her towards the staircase to the ground floor. At the top of the staircase, she turned to me. “Why can’t you take more care?” she asked furiously, but with a note of concern. “You’re lucky I remembered you when I saw these keys on the counter. Otherwise...”

That concern transformed the moment. The young lady in uniform suddenly became a regular human being, with all the burdens that humanity carries. My fear fell away. “Right,” I said. “Thanks very much.” I checked my pouch. “Everything’s here.” She nodded and marched away, and I returned slowly to my seat at the gate, relieved of my fear of flying.