Between Flights, Between Glasses

Airports are curious theatres of waiting. They are not quite places yet not entirely passages either—thresholds where the world pauses briefly before moving on. When I was in Helsinki, stopping over for a few hours on my way from New York to Delhi, that sense of suspension was heightened by the snow. It fell incessantly, steadily, without drama, until the airport lay wrapped in a white, luminous blanket. Even indoors, one felt its presence: a muted hush in the air, a softened light, as though the outside world had been gently erased and redrawn in chalk and silence.

The business lounge at Helsinki Airport reflects something deeply Nordic in spirit—restrained, elegant, self-possessed. It does not open itself theatrically to the outside world; there are no sweeping windows offering spectacle. The calm here is inward, cultivated. The airport feels less like a gateway and more like a pause—efficient, composed, almost meditative, as if time itself has agreed to slow its pulse. It was there, amid this composed stillness, that my attention was drawn to the bartender.

Savelii was young and handsome—as bartenders so often are, perhaps because the profession demands an ease with presence, a comfort with being watched. What surprised me was learning that he came from St. Petersburg, Russia, having travelled quite a distance to arrive at this quiet northern outpost. He had been bartending for two years, he said, and his ultimate ambition was to open a bar of his own someday. But it was not biography or appearance that held me. It was movement.

His hands moved with a fluency that bordered on choreography. Bottles were lifted, tilted, and returned with practised grace; the jigger flashed briefly before disappearing into the rhythm of the pour. Ice was scooped, then cracked lightly against glass; citrus was cut, twisted, expressed. Ingredients were muddled just enough to release their oils, never bruised. Shakers met and parted with a soft, percussive music before the liquid was double strained into waiting glassware. Even the garnish—placed last—felt considered, part of a quiet mise en place that governed the small universe of the bar.

There was nothing hurried about his work, yet nothing wasted either. Each gesture had intent, each pause its own meaning. Watching him, one felt that the bar was not merely a counter but a small stage, and he its discreet performer—part musician, part chemist, part craftsman.

I engaged him in conversation.

He spoke easily, without flourish. Yes, he liked his job—liked it a great deal. There was pleasure, he said, in creating, in serving, in seeing a face respond to the first sip. I asked him what his ambition was, what horizon he was moving toward in this world of glass and spirit. He smiled and said simply: I want to be the best in my line.

It was not said grandly. There was no manifesto behind it. Just a calm certainty—almost Nordic in its restraint. Excellence, not fame. Mastery, not noise.

As a memento of our brief exchange, he offered to make me a drink—non-alcoholic, he noted thoughtfully, something he would “create” for me. I watched again as his hands went to work, this time with a more personal attentiveness, as though the drink were a sentence being composed for a specific reader. When he placed it before me, it felt less like a beverage and more like a gesture—hospitality distilled into form.

I am not an avid follower of Bacchus. I do not possess the vocabulary of spirits, nor the cultivated palate of the connoisseur. Yet I have always admired alcohol as one of humanity’s oldest and most curious creations—a product of patience, fermentation, and imagination. Ever since human beings learned not merely to eat but to dine, not merely to drink but to savour, alcohol has accompanied us: in celebration and sorrow, in ritual and rebellion, in solitude and society. Bars, in that sense, are not merely sites of consumption; they are informal republics where stories loosen, time softens, and strangers briefly consent to share a moment.

Bartenders are the custodians of this republic. They listen more than they speak. They measure more than they preach. They work at the intersection of chemistry and empathy, precision and intuition. A good bartender does not merely pour; he reads the room, senses the mood, adjusts the temperature of an evening.

As I sipped my drink—fresh, layered, thoughtfully balanced, a careful composition of cherry, ginger, grapes, lemon, orange, sugar syrup, Nolla, a Finnish non-alcoholic spirit, and perhaps a few ingredients I could not quite decipher—I realised that pleasure does not always require intoxication. Sometimes it resides in care, in attention, in the quiet pride of doing one thing well.

Soon, my flight would be called. I would move on—from Finland, from the lounge, from this brief human exchange. Outside, the snow would continue to fall, indifferent and exacting. But the memory lingered. In a world increasingly rushed, increasingly loud, there was something deeply reassuring about that calm declaration: I want to be the best in my line.

At an airport—of all places—that seemed ambition enough.

(Uday Kumar Varma is an IAS officer. Retired as Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting)