My First Internation Flight - Part I

The summer day was drawing to a close and dusk had fallen on Meenambakkam International Airport. The air was filled with excitement for the students and very sentimental for the parents; especially for the mothers who are dedicated believers in the maxim of early to bed and early to rise works in the modern times. It was very much the same for my mother because I left them for a project assignment and they now had no one to pass this maxim on a daily basis. The airport during this season in Madras is always worse than Central Railway Station. The noises of each mother giving their Son/Daughter their final advice. (Most of them didn’t care … so was I)? Hence like all the others I too received it with a gratified nod in the good old English way.

Now left alone in the Immigration check, I was trying to uplift my mood with a better walk than my normal one. Hence, I tried a Walk like an Egyptian but it turned out to be more precisely like John Wayne. This was not the final; my eyes, which for some reason that I can’t state explicitly were bulging out, like the Wolf in Looney Toons. This was when I started walking towards the journey across the Atlantic. The main reason for this trip was in fact to flex some muscles in my head, which for some reason or the other had not been used at all. (The Medulla Oblongata is quiet close for a first wild guess.) I was gloomy and it must have been from the fact that solitude and further adjusting to a new environment made me look stupefied. To be more exact a look like seeing KAJOL come by and invade you in your fantasy and send our hearts beating faster than a Pentium IV processor clock. Sometimes in these crisis situations I found that it would be possible to divert the mind from the item uppermost in the agenda to something lower and uninteresting like work, documentation, physical exercise etc. I am sure that this idea works practically in all cases in a male employee. (Never cared about the Female section)

In all this time, I was strolling away and was now just steps away from boarding the plane. I really felt as though each small step of mine was indeed a giant leap to mankind – OK not mankind but at least for the frog-kind. The closest approach to a real plane previously was around 10 KMS, though I was just 10 millimeters if you considered playing Flight Simulator on Playstation-II. This also marks my first sighting of those gorgeous airhostesses who were wishing us all a happy journey. For a long time, this was the moment that looked like bringing me back to my own mood, but then there was an announcement that there was a ½ hour delay. It was probably the worst ½ hour in my life; the agony of the wait still makes my blood boil.

I sat in the lounge for several minutes motionless with my limbs and brain (goes without saying) totally inert except my eyes which were working with a speed such that it always accompanied the imminence of the perils that lie ahead. Luckily this day was not so since I was confronted with a situation in which no single man on the world could handle it alone. The plot here is that the next seat to mine was occupied by a girl (Still can’t find words to describe her) with whom I had written my TOEFL exam.

Many of my friends have known that my mouth which rarely shuts and now with an added catalyst, a cute female, with whom I can say that I have had a good acquaintance with her, it wouldn’t. This made my mouth work merrily of all the organs in my body. One has to be very careful about the first few lines when we open a conversation. I think I got it right this time, it was of course all babbling about my chivalrous anecdotes in acquiring the VISA. It was after a few lines into the conversation, which right now was a plain monologue; it was thrust upon me the fact that snakes could sometimes even penetrate into the most Gentlemanly Garden of Eden. One such snake was coming along my way at this moment. He was brushing aside me like those flies around the steaming hot Jilebees during deepavali. Hence, this was one more effort of mine down the drain.

It would have been possible that had the meeting taken place a bit earlier, I would have been in a better frame of mind to break this news to my cousin. He, a man of many words, sort to narrate his own version of this meeting to all my friends. Of course to expect a sensible and plausible defense for me in a matter like this cannot be given and nor will my friends agree to give me a chance. This news spread faster than a forest fire in Amazon and made me look like a zero when moments ago I was a hero. This was the precise moment that the captain announced our Takeoff.

And finally the plane took off in a sensational manner. We had never been on a flight before this and hence the first lift from the gravity of earth was just GREAT. This is what we were thinking until an old lady in the next row to mine disgruntled at what a rough take off. Nevertheless it was a fairly good one for us. The pilot from Madras to Bombay was an amateur I suppose from the way he chartered the trip on mid-air. Once up in the sky we saw Madras buy night for the last time. It was a good picture of Sodium lamps lit throughout the city. In fact the whole city looked so small to us. The strangest fact was that even Jayalalitha’s biggest cut out was as tiny as a passport size photograph. After viewing this we settled down in our seats and started to relax.

The night was very young and very still. From somewhere in a distance came faintly a sound of a ravishing young female while near at hand I could hear my friends whispering about her like hooting of a white or more definitely some brown owls. Thus an impressive urge swept over me to take a look at her and I made no attempts to resist it. Feeling damped that I might damage my image, I thought for a while and then not discouraged by the damage I rose and saw her. Stretched on her heels and breathing gently through her nose, she was enjoying her job of serving beverages to all the passengers. A glance of her was enough to tell anybody to what an extent she would be in the dreams to come for me. Albeit the glance was brief, it had the most invigorating effect on me. All, I felt, was for the best of all possible worlds and made an effort to converse with her. To my rather good or bad luck the hostess was also from Madras and to be precise Triplicane. Thus, it drew me like a magnet towards accosting with her.

The fact that she was from Madras was not so important but the fact that she conversed with everyone around me in English and to me alone in Tamil made my image look worse especially with a female sitting next to me. While people all around me could not help from keeping their eyes open and took to natures way of curing this problem … SLEEP. Hence with nobody awake around me I went for the bell. Surprisingly all my calls were answered quickly and this started the acquaintance with her. After a while of talking, the English tongue gave way to Tamizhl.
All the while when I was talking my cousin used to wake up, but for my luck, it didn’t take him much longer than 5 seconds to fall asleep again. He was one of those fortunate guys who had no need to count sheep’s but to drop off directly the moment the head touches the pillows. With the air around the aircraft chilled due to controlled atmosphere, Mother Nature started to call me. I thought that I might hold it for some time but then nature won over my tolerance and I decided to unseal my hands towards the famous Bell but controlled this urge. I preferred to postpone this revelation till dinnertime, but this did not appear with the spheres of practicality. Hence I reached for the Bell, the bell to me sounded like that of the "Big Ben" but for my luck, this call seemed to be invalidated and my desperation grew. I stood up and started looking around in a state of flux. Something had to be done soon, having decided to go for it; it was like a point of no return, a dead end street. There were several moments during this short wait when I would have been glad to be interrupted by somebody, which was not happening now. Then from my back a sharp pat came on my back, it was the Hostess. She could easily see a striking resemblance of me with a Tamil proverb "INNJI THINNA KURANGGU POLA" which roughly translated means the facial expression off a monkey when swallowed a gingerroot. Of course this was not the best of times when I should moot over my resemblance with my ancestors and hence I rushed to the restroom.

It can never be an agreeable experience for any passenger to find his seat taken over by somebody else and the owner cannot be censured for allowing him to disconcert him. Of course you got it correct, my cousin had taken over the seat that I held during the short trip to the rest room. If there was someone as determined as me, then there is a simple and easy way to cope with these types of situations. Let my cousin have it in his own way.

My First Internation Flight - Part II

For perhaps two or three minutes after I returned from the restroom my cousin preserved an unbroken silence. All this while I was non-chantingly whistling away to glory as if I was walking to receive an Olympic gold medal, he was plunged again in thoughts of how clever he had grabbed the vantage seat. This act is possibly achieved only by one trained in the Hard CBSE schools in Madras. In fact I was so relieved after my short but very much needed visit that I felt like back floating on the waves of Hawaii with a glass of orange juice and a group of Belly Dancers. (Of course I lied about the Belly Dancers)

My cousin, who now was wide awake like a night owl looking for its prey, started to do his part in the drama in trying to capture the attention of the girl (I am not making this up, but she was Cute. She had a pretty nose too). I was in no mood to play some part in this drama and was satisfied in being just an innocent guy watching every move of his. My cousin took some time to bring his art of palavering to its present state. In the past he was a crude babbler, but tonight he was prepared to match his wits against any Romeo under the Milky Way (except the Martian named M45 in J34 Black Hole). He started to hum some popular (acclaimed by many) Hindi songs, a thing that he has never done in the past, just because the female next to him was a Bengali and it was the only common ground between them. Of course you can't expect to start a conversation about Metaphysics and Astronomy with a cute female. However he was able to carry out peacefully some conversation about Hindi movies. They are the best and easy in the town now because all the movies today feature 4-5 songs featuring the Heroin doing some steps that need the highest ABDOMINAL DEXTERITY and also with the LOWEST costume possible on Earth (Also on Mars. Source: NASA Pathfinder) While all this was going on, it took the same Hostess with whom now I can claim acquaintance to separate them by bringing us the first can of Coke in our life. (Previously seen only in TV commercials)

My cousin and I were really thrilled at the service. I had already assured myself of the drink by passing; to be precise stretching, my hands like a Madras policeman would have done on seeing a motorcycle rider without a helmet. In order to give you a clear picture, we both were like guys waiting for Sakarai Pongal at ParthaSarathi Koil. Like any animal's instinct, whenever it comes to choosing between females and food, my brain takes the correct decision and sticks to the FOOD.

This situation was a bit different from the others that I had encountered; I thought that may be food in one hand and the female on the other would make me in a Win-Win situation. Unfortunately, it didn't workout like this for me because the female's (Who can't be taken for granted) eyes were drooping shut. Hence I also decided against my will and did what most males would have done; I went to sleep without the food of course.

For the next one and a half hour there was nothing worth mentioning except that all around me were sleeping while I was wide awake waiting for a chance to give my mouth some work. With conditions as described any quick thinker than I would have restrained from hearing the announcement and try to fade away into the night with minimum delay. Distressingly, I was thrown aback by the announcer with an accent that looked like a machine gun (Don't get confused with Bofors which never fires) firing 24 rounds/Min. All this firing, I mean talking, was to convey that we had safely (Not for the First Time) landed in Bombay. From the pilot's point of view, this was rather great but for somebody who was in the midst of his dreamland it wasn't much of a use. I was mad at them for waking me up just when I started to drowse. It is possible that sometimes a spirit like this lingers on throughout the journey but at this juncture all I could think of was that the Hostesses were to change and who would be for this leg of the journey. I feel that this is a rather good question to ponder when your brain needs something to do when you have time at your disposal.

The next part of my flight was not so adventurous because the Hostess this time was a Marati and was looking a shade better than the one before. All said and done, an airhostess in your bay is worth two in the bath tub – assuming you are no way near the tub.

My First Internation Flight - Part III

We landed at Heathrow around 0430 hours, as always when the weather is not unusual, the London sun shone half as bright as it would have done in Madras at the same time. Silence gripped the aircraft except for the footsteps of some passengers hurrying to get down first and start haggling with the cabs in the morning. Some passengers also rushed to change airports from Heathrow and Gatwick terminal. Fortunately for me, I was to take the connecting flight from the same terminal. After settling down in the lounge we saw that there were just 7-8 guys in our group and we were destined to spend the next 7 hours at this same terminal.

It is difficult to say offhand of what ought to be the aspect in which one should look at 0430 hours. I have never seen this part of the day except on Deepavali day every year. Should I be pleasant looking, or somewhat ordinary face or else the seemingly dazed look on my face? Nevertheless of the looks, which I don’t bother, I decided to brush my teeth before making a dive into the breakfast which my mother had packed for us. My friend decided to act fast and decided to brush first and I was left guarding the luggage. My friend returned after quiet some time (I was thinking if he was brushing just his teeth or else brushing the teeth of all others in the restroom.) with a huge grin on his face. The grin represented as if he had achieved in doing some Herculean task and that deserved rather a big applause. He then took the rather simple job of watching the luggage, which for now was very important since it had all the food.

I should have known better not to trust my friend’s direction. He is one of those guys who believed in the proverb "All Roads lead to Rome". He pointed his finger with authority at a place, which I assumed was the restroom. It took me the next 15 minutes with the help of the information center to locate the restroom. The funny part was that I was given a Map without the important information, the RED mark that states "You are here". Then with my navigation skills I finally reached the restroom. I did not know for sure if my friend had concealed from me the correct directions or perhaps the morning was a bit slack for him that he grabbed the opportunity to have me run around looking for places which was right under my nose.

Inside the restroom I stood helplessly looking at the mirror, with the brush loaded with toothpaste in my mouth while the dumb tap wouldn’t let flow the water. My exasperation became too much for my friend. If had any lethal weapon than a small brush and a tooth paste, I would have thrown it at him for concealing all the intricate details that I should have known before entering this room. It looked like even Kaveri water would flow into Madras but this single tap wouldn’t. All it did was just pouring hot air. I was immobilised with the paste in my mouth and hence was waiting for someone to rescue me.

Then a huge built guy walked in with a bang as if he was Samson and somebody was trying to cut his hair. He went straight to the tap and put is hand under the tap and the dumb tap as I called it worked fine. It seemed as if that Niagara Falls had been transported to this place. Then did I realise that the English way of taps with two unwanted knobs on top of the basin while all it needed was a hand underneath the tap to make it work. My emotions upon seeing my friend was like a lover who had planned to lunch with the girl he adored and later it turns to be her father waiting at the restaurant. On the site of me walking towards him, he took up like a horse participating in the two thirty race and fled from the scene. One point that I wish to make here is that it was not a very attractive horse but this time it was a crowd favorite.

One of the things that rendered my task so arduous was the fact that he has a physical advantage over me in running short distances. Of course, in games where the mind comes to play I was a clean winner. Hence a compromise was made that we decided to share the breakfast. According to the compromise, it was a fair event i.e. 60% for me and 40% for him. As austere friend would have not agreed to this but since my friend is one who proves that mighty brain is no match for nimble brawn, this deal looked fair in his eyes. The breakfast was Idlis with chutney. It seemed like this was probably the last best known breakfast that we were going to have for quiet some time to come. We never had experimented with the art of cuisine till date. I would say that my cooking is not graded as an environmental hazard but is palatable at times.

With too much of Idlies, our throat dried out and we were all looking like parched cactus on the lookout for a water hole in a desert. Bang! From one of the friends bag came a Coca-Cola can. It looked like as if he was Aladdin with his magic lamp. We shared the drink; of course this time it was even a fairer deal than before, 50% each. The main point here is that unless your destination, the COKE can, is within the range of your hands we should try to get the vantage position as quickly as possible else you loose in these type of games. Just at the end of the coke-can round, Aladdin took another can out of the bag.

This needed some looking into the magic behind this and we found it by directly confronting him. He said that his seniors had advised him to stack up his hand luggage with coke cans from the previous flight so that we don’t look like parched cactus in the desert. With this answer, he started to raise his collar thinking high of himself, astute to be precise. He then proceeded to ask me if I didn’t get to do this act. This was a situation that had my ego at stake and hence squeezing my brain, which seldom works, gave back a fitting reply saying that there would be some dumb bloke who would stack his bag and that I could share it with him – so why bother?.

My First Internation Flight - Part IV

This is the final part of my journey across the Atlantic from London to Chicago. I was told that it was a beautiful trip but all together I could only see the white clouds and not once did I get an opportunity to see the Atlantic Ocean.

The final stretch is always the most thrilling and for me it was truly a great experience. The most interesting part happened during this leg of the journey. After a grueling 7 hours halt at London we started towards the boarding point. The afternoon had now reached the point where a good deal of activity prevailed even on a Sunday. Almost everybody were somewhere doing something, even if it was only having a coffee at the tea shop or waiting for a connecting flight. While the final calls for boarding were going on, my friend and I rushed to the check-in point and threw our passes as though the airline officials were waiting for a photo finish.

The female took the boarding passes and typed a few keys, a few here is an understatement and the speed was never in her constitution. She came back to us and enquired if we desperately want to be seated together. Both of us opened our mouths at the same time just as if two cats had the misfortune of having their tail stamped at the same moment by a rather heavy pedestrian. We stood for an instant staring at each other with eyes widened in speechless horror; then as if by conditioned reflex, my friend ceased and gave way for me to answer back and I immediately replied a resounding yes. Then she went back to the same old game of typing a few keys without an increase in her typing speed, which can be compared the speed at which my fingernail grows, and came back with new boarding passes. Hence, we were off to board our last leg of this long journey.

Well, at the back of my mind it was running as though that I had won the battle of Waterloo and now returning back for a victory march I was walking towards the gate. Emerging into the flight with a song in my lips, the first thing I saw was a crowd at the entrance. An airhostess then used a superb idea and it seemed to have worked. Yes, using two lines instead of one for deflection of the crowd was used here. A sensible man, I thought, would have realised the outcome of this opening would have stayed in the same place. In order to prove Murphy’s Law wrong, my friend and I changed lines and as usual the other line moved faster.

We then saw all our friends enter the flight through the right gate and hence when our turn came up we walked to the right. At this juncture, we thought that we were really shrewd by not taking the help of the attendant in locating the seats but again she stopped us. It was a shout and followed by a long prevailed silence before we came to a screeching halt. She reaffirmed upon looking into our passes and directed us to the left of the aircraft. I, still with the song in my lips, now was whistling even louder at the fact that she was wrong and she was making more noise at me. I was waiting, like an Owl starring at the night for a grasshopper, for a chance to show my vocal ability. All this while she was winning and escorted, but in actual terms we were lead by our collars, to the business class compartment.

Fortunately, the success of this mini confusion had resulted in cheerfulness enough for us. We were feeling happy and relaxed for once during this journey. We had come expecting a difficult time and it was a relief that to have a business compartment. We settled down comfortably and started to explore the New World of gadgets in front of us, like a kid being let free in a Toy-R(backwards)-Us shop. For once we both agreed that the personalised movie channel was the best of the lot since back in the economy class it was always like a Chinese state prison and now it was like an American correction facility. At least here, we could sit without having the elbow of the next passenger on your chest and sometimes if you have a bulky passenger I think suffocation is on the cards for you. Thus, we both settled down without any argument and soon were watching movies of our own likes.

I liked to explore more freely viz. walking through the aisle and while doing so I noticed a nice good magazine, its solidity had impressed me very much. It was, at a glance, the sort of thing that a novice would take full measures to read it, and not sure if he was equal to its demands. (Mail me the name of the magazine and see if you got it right) I recalled previous triumphs back in Madras library but still couldn’t cast of the odds against me this time and hence I performed what a sensible man would do; walk away without trying for it. By this time, the hostesses were back to their work – serving with a made up smile. Even in the most favourable circumstances would I have been seldom eager to eat, but with just the glimpse of her I was forced to answer yes involuntarily.

She gave us a booklet and left us flipping through it like a 3-year-old through a newspaper, while we were waiting for them to serve what was there. Little did it strike us that the booklet was in fact the menu card and she came back for an order. I, yet again, had to keep the momentum going brilliantly, asked for the menu card. This time the hostess sort to actions since it speaks more than words and pointed to the booklet in my hand. Thus We, as in WE, had a choice of food and in this case was for a 6 course meal.

With six courses of meal and a nice movies of my choice, all said and done, the best place to be in a flight. The day was clam and sunny and I was thoroughly enjoying every inch of the flight. In this respect it differed radically with my friend. We hadn’t paid money yet for the flight and hence the sudden change of class in our ticket would mean that we would have to pay more. It was this that put my friend’s mind the whimsical idea that we had to pay the difference in the prices too. There was no thought of any sordid gain in this journey for him and there was only one thing that could put a stop to it. Yes, SLEEP and after the 6 course meals, it was inevitable for us to fight staying awake. Of course, it seemed to me a most admirable suggestion (SLEEP), one that would solve everything. Hence, after seeing a couple of movies with around ten servings of ice creams we both prepared ourselves to enter into our dreamland.

After the hostess cleaned the place, we were set to go to sleep at the earliest possible situation. Though it was a little stuffed for my friend to sleep fully clothed we had to retire into sleep with them on. We, slept, of course couldn’t say like Sleeping Beauty, but something similar to that. We were later woken up to find that we were just 15 minutes from landing in Chicago. We were involved for the last minutes in filling the I-94 cards and thus ended our flight to America from Madras.

That's All FOLKS!!!