I always feel important wearing a suit at the airport. No matter how ugly looking the person wearing the suit, the suit always manages to force a smile from people at the airport. Now these smiles that I speak of are not the fake plastic ken and Barbie smiles that you get all the time these are ‘your money makes my world twirl’ kind of smiles. No matter what happens I always wear a suit when traveling. The trouble of wearing a terry wool suit and incessant heat wave that is associated with it is far outweighed by the benefits that these 3 meters of cloth bring with them.

It’s almost as if the suit says look at me I mean business, it’s a feeling that only those who are self obsessed with power can truly relish. Short men have been known to be power hungry; I claim to be no different.  Last Night I had my Sunday best on, a black pin striped suit that makes me look oh so good, takes of the weight from the right places and makes me look a little fairer that I actually am, all the makings if a legend. I have traveled with this suit for years now and it has never failed me.

I was at the Bangalore International Airport a god forsaken, middle of nowhere, state of the art facility that takes too long to get to. I did the rounds, smiled at the boarding pass lady asked for the aisle seat in the front of the plane. It looked like it was going to be a good night, things were moving smoothly and it felt right.

The next bit is always the security check which is just a formality that needs to be taken out of the way. For some reason that I am yet to figure out Indian security post officers always seems to forget that there is a reason for the metal detector. They always use their hands to touch and see things. Excessive touching by unknown men makes me uncomfortable. In the past I have been groped by a security check officer. However, this was my lucky day as the officer who was screening me only wanted to use his wand (the metal detector) and the bloody thing beeped. He made me take off my Italian boots, next came the leather belt with its little metal trinkets. All the metal that I knew about was now off my body. The metal detector beeped when being waved around my bum. He checked again and the same thing happened. I touched my ass just to make sure I had no metal bits hanging off my ass, it was soft and pudgy, and it felt exactly like what it was supposed to feel.  He then began the great Indian security drill, before I could realize what had happened the wand was cast away and his hands were feeling my ass.

Being homophobic it always takes me a second to gather my thoughts and in this case I needed to do something quick. I asked him to stop feeling, he looked up at me and just kept going, I felt like a northeastern girl in Delhi being felt up by a big bad Jat. But my little revolt meant that I was taken to the women’s screening section for a more thorough examination. Now I have always been curious of what goes on in these little curtain bound screening rooms but I never quite imagined that I would be in one of these.

He asked me drop my pants, I thought it was joke….. it wasn’t. I was made to strip down to my checked boxers while my pants were taken away to the x- ray screening machine. These 90 seconds that I spent with no pants on have to be the longest that I have spent Ever. To top it all a random Jharkhandi/ Assamese female cop decided to check what was going on and so much to my dismay with single flick of her wrist she decided to open the curtain that separated my partial nakedness to the whole world. There I was at the Bangalore International Airport with my checked boxers for the world to see. “Choory” that was all she blurted out, I could not make out if she meant sorry or woman in Hindi. Eventually around 10 guys gathered around the x-ray machines and all of them pondered over my pants which had acquired celebrity status by now. The ordeal ended in another 5 mins or so and I was handed my pants back.

I can’t say that I walked with pride in my suit that night but I will say that I am glad that I decided to skip the briefs or the thongs that night. God bless boxers.