OPINION

At New Delhi’s Terminal 3
the fun is only just beginning

Mystical journey features a glorious orchestra of taxis and ululating passengers seeking divine connection. While the Mughals are being excised from history textbooks tourists get an immersive taste of the first Battle of Panipat.

by Vijay Verghese/ Editor

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International arrivals at night are constantly caught in massive jams at Delhi's Terminal 3 where private cabs, call cars and black-and-yellow taxis converge on limited exits while a grindingly slow police registration booth completely gums up the works for everyone/ photo: Vijay Verghese

INAUGURATED with much fanfare in July 2010, New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3 was as close to a revelation as you could get without trekking to Kedarnath Temple or kissing the then peaceful Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the terminal, described by NDTV as “the most modern” in the country and the “fifth largest airport terminal in the world.” No strangers to long walks and waits, international readers awarded it a No.7 rank on the Best Airports Worldwide list on our 2013 annual poll. This was quite an accolade on a flat-out poll with no nomination fees and all the fuss that attends such exercises today.

This result was in part sheer relief at a more decent pink-eyed 2am arrival to the land of enlightenment that so mesmerised The Beatles. Indians, rightly, took pride in this simple strip-mall building that offered no architectural epiphany, because it actually worked. Immigration and security were streamlined and the visitor welcome included an impressive array of classical dance and yoga ‘mudra’ hand gestures in copper.

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In 2014 New Delhi’s Terminal 3 ranked No.7 again on our poll. The following year it was No.8. In 2016 it placed No.10 following which it disappeared from our Top 10 lists to drop far down the rankings. To be sure, over this period some impressive new airports have opened in China and the Middle East as elsewhere, but why such an abject fall?

{traffic is converging with vigorous curses on one booth where an officer is in animated conversation with a friend while sipping tea and eyeing his phone

The answer lies perhaps not in the fast gate-to-kerb experience — which remains an impressive 10-15 minutes on a good day sans check-in bags, on par with Singapore’s top-ranked Changi Airport — but what happens next. This is the dystopian slide into hell as passengers are thrust into the arrivals scrum to figure out a dignified exit. Sadly, there is none, though off-peak arrival may present a less alarming picture. Black-and-yellow police-registered taxis — in appalling condition — Mega cabs (battered and cramped) and premium taxis along with unknown cars jam all lanes as touts prey on wide-eyed travellers. Uber and OLA cars can only be accessed at the car park a short distance away and they are charged a further ‘parking fee’, adding to passenger inconvenience and cost.

The catch is, once through the arrival process, passengers are not deemed to be the airport’s problem anymore. Shortly after the T3 launch I brought this up with the then airport head, a tall lanky likeable gentleman with easy manners. He focused on the terminal’s visible successes and did not see taxis as a key issue. It seemed this was largely an ‘outside’ problem. The airport was fine.

On 18 March my flight landed at New Delhi 9.30pm. The Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong was early and I strolled with my cabin bag from aircraft past customs in a mere 10 minutes. I congratulated myself. Then I step into Dante’s Inferno.

It has just rained and the air is pleasantly cool but there is no time to thank the weather Gods. The traffic is at a standstill with far too many cars trying to squeeze into just two open exit lanes, one of these blocked by a police booth where black-and-yellow taxis are being registered in exquisite slow motion, impossible to detect with the naked eye.

After 30 minutes I ask the Mega cab agent why, despite much honking and growing bedlam, the cars are not moving at all. He rolls his eyes and points at the booth. Some bureaucrat has ordered the Mega cabs to use the same lane as the police registered taxis and as a result all the traffic is converging with a few scrapes and vigorous curses on the one tiny booth where a duty officer is in animated conversation with a friend in between sipping his tea and looking at his phone. No policeman or airport official is directing traffic.

The Mega cabs do not need registration — and could exit right away — but are blocked by the black-and-yellow taxis queued up for this unique privilege. The lane closest to the arrivals hall has been given to premium taxis authorised by the authorities. This is blocked as well but cars are inching forward.

By 50 minutes the growing clot of desperate passengers, many with babies, others limping, has burst like an angry aneurism and people fling themselves into the melee to find any unoccupied car and get in, brushing aside driver protests that the coupon numbers do not match.
A solitary Mega agent, working feverishly to control the mob and direct his marooned drivers, finally finds me an empty vehicle and thrusts me in. “Just take this car sir,” he says, silencing the driver who complains at first but sees the wisdom of a fast lockdown as desperate faces and hands press against the windows.

Then with the aircon on and the mob muted outside I realise that following rules and lines is simply not the Indian way. It is certainly not the way of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, which regularly serves up the worst arrival experience in Asia,  though huge video displays advertise yet another win on Skytrax as the Best Airport in India and South Asia.

The Buddha said life is a process of disillusionment. He was right. John Lennon roasted the Maharishi in his Sexy Sadie when he abruptly ended his Rishikesh meditations and left, disappointed but changed. We left the airport behind and I slipped into the Twilight Zone, the alternative reality that is India. Next morning the skies had cleared. It was good to be back amidst the New Delhi greens and flowers, given fresh life by the rains. “Just take the Metro into town and catch a taxi from there next time,” was the advice I got from old school friends. Another artful dodge, one of many any traveller will need while negotiating the vicissitudes of Incredible India.

Do prepare for that mystical journey back in time featuring a glorious orchestra of taxis and ululating passengers seeking divine connection. While the Mughals are being excised from history textbooks arrivals are getting an immersive taste of the first Battle of Panipat. The din is ferocious, the re-enactment confusing, fearsome, dramatic. At the end you will have conquered all your fears and become a better man.