(Written just before boarding my flight to Singapore)

After touring the Indian IT pentagon - Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune. I looked beyond our own shores after all my job title says - "Evangelist (Asia Pacific)". So next fell in place - Seoul, Chicago and Singapore. Though for the context of this entry I should also mention the connecting airports - Paris, Taipei, Kula Lum Pur and Bangkok.

As you can see I can quite fairly comment upon each of these airports (well I can talk about the cities as well, but that is for another day). I’m also tempted to add-in the other airports that I have been to as well - San Francisco, Boston, Frankfurt, Vienna, Graz, Delhi, Kolkotta, Las Vegas and Hong Kong.

Some might argue comparing Indian airports to the others is not fair, but again wait till I start explaining and you will see my point.

Well the real point or rather an observation that I’m trying to make is this you can’t find a better marketplace than an airport for a consumer like me. This is something that I have observed after the long lists of bills that I have accrued from hitting the numerous eating joints and various shop at the departure and transit lounges of these airports.

I think it all started with the mentality that - "the good stuff is always cheap out of India", which was compounded by the guilt of not having bought any chocolates or goodies for office colleagues and friends. This ultimately resulted in a frantic search for something which was value-for-money (or rather cheap but yet in copious quantities) - which turns out that most airports offer in vast quantities of candy stores and patisseries. So you have a number of options to buy those things that you are going to give away for free and never going to get benefits of materialistic nature - yeah yeah I know benefits of friendship - but still!

Anyways, all this "donation shopping" again and again - made me more mellow in terms of spending money so the person who used to save all his dollars from visits to US starts eating bagels and donuts worth 15$ at Bangkok airport. Followed by Sake at Singapore airport and a 20$ McDonalds breakfast at Hong Kong airport. Talk about loosening of purses!

I know what you must be thinking - well if you are hungry ain’t you feed your stomach man? Hell ya, but I tell you "airport spending" is a progressive habit. And, in my case it spread to spending on - books, electronics, alcohol, in-flight shopping, etc etc …

I think this is also attributed to the Zen-like built of most lounges - there is nothing you could do except shop! Its like putting steaks in front of a hungry lion. Normally when I go to bookstores, I have a couple of friends around me who don’t let me spend more than an hour in the shop. But, at the airports I’m alone and the whole market it to myself. Think about consumer freedom and marketing mind games. Trap a consumer in a place where each nook and cranny asks for his money, if he is not tempted by the books, what about the electronics, or the liquors or maybe the parfums? Have you ever noticed that you start feeling hungry in a couple of minutes waiting for your flight at the airport - maybe it is the shiny bistro spewing all sorts of yummy cooking smells in the air.

Maybe I should take more care next time before buying that 35$ book at the Chicago airport, which costs Rs. 695 at the Indian ones?

Air travellers beware!