We are living during times when all people waiting at airport (or hotel) lobbies have only two books to read - The Secret or The White Tiger. Books that a friend calls 'essential reading for the non-serious reader'. I don't mean this in a judgmental way (it goes without saying that when one says judgmental, it always means negatively judgmental), because with all due credit, the female variety at airport lobbies has progressed from the time when for about four and a half years, they were stuck with that other lobby-book 'Tuesdays with Morrie'. In hallways spread across this vast country - women of all sub-40 ages and pedigrees could be spotted gawking into the pages of Tuesdays with Morrie. I use the word 'gawking' confidently because they were always alternating surreptitious glances at the book in their hands and their surroundings - people in particular. One could almost transcribe the happenings within their minds: "So where was I? Third paragraph on the right-side page. But wait, look at that pink-clad elephant of a woman and her non-matching shoes. Such absence of dressing sense. Reminds me of so-and-so, that obnoxious friend of so-and-so. Back to paragraph 3. The man with the pink-clad elephant too has a potbelly. No wonder both..." No wonder their part-time glances at the books looked like gawking. Only that now, the subject of this timeshare gawking is Rhonda Byrnes' The Secret.
This overhaul in reading monotony from Tuesdays with Morrie to The Secret is by all means an achievement in the chronology of insignificant reading.
Men waiting at airport lobbies on the other hand had nothing much to pass time with until America introduced laptops to the world, except gawking at the women who were gawking at the books and at other women gawking at books. The advent of mobile phones then added a third occupation for the male kind. After going through the farcical modalities of security checks at our terrorist-friendly airports, our typical suited booted corporate-type pot bellied business development manager dude now finds an empty seat in the lobby and with a quick sprint of his handbag's zipper, flashes out the Lenovo laptop. Presently, the other hand reaches for the mobile phone, the screen of which without much delay is propelled towards the ear and stuck there. While the laptop boots up, he indulges in the habit of habits, and with one sweep of the eyeball surveys all the women gawking at books before returning his gaze to the laptop screen.
From here commences the intricately tripartite occupation, multi-task of multi-tasks - of talking loudly on the mobile while gawking at the book-gawkers and then passively at the laptop screen. Any expectations that the laptop screen might have an Excel sheet or a business proposal are quickly unfounded when you hear musical beeping sounds of balls bouncing against surfaces. The subject of our regard is playing one of those games called "Stupid games for pea-brained morons waiting in lobbies or traveling in metro trains." For those without laptops, these games also come in mobile versions, the juggling of which along with loud talking on phone is made easier by hands-free kits or Bluetooth headsets.
