This whole flying business gets into my nerves. While it is extremely convenient to travel from one place to another, the sheer effort that one should put in to get into the aircraft and thereof is one saga of a sad story.
Firstly, the airports are now very crowded. Almost no one appears to go by train these days. All of them are flying. So, there are long queues for everything. From check-in to the lavatories! If you are flying Indian Airlines, then you can be certain that, in your last birth you were a serial killer. Maybe you killed babies. Only then you deserve such kind of punishment. There will be two staff manning the counters for a million people. And they work in super slow motion. Either they are seriously afflicted with some nervous disorder that their limbs can only do 10% of what normal people do, or they just don’t care a damn about you. After a lifetime of checking and issuing the boarding pass (mind you they are Gods, they will not ask you which seat you prefer, they have been generous enough to consent flying you in their aircraft) you then proceed to the security check.
This is another drama. Many people are first time flyers and there is no proper help. I am seeing atleast every 3rd person being turned back to check in what they are not supposed to carry in person. The checking while being perfunctory is once again super slow. They enjoy your discomfort of standing on a platform with arms spread. Maybe they are recruited from Yamaloha straight. And this damn metal detector beeps for everything. For me atleast!! I don’t how on earth they make out which beep is a bomb–beep. And I get very nervous as it beeps when it travels down on me. It is the belt buckle honestly, but as the Sardar Kushwant has written, something made of steel could be there. :p I meant the coins! And then you go back to collect your bag which is unceremoniously thrown somewhere.
Then starts the fun. Our hasty heroes come into play. The rush to pick up Economic Times could beat Carl Lewis in his heydays. The way they run and grab the copies convinces me that we evolved from animals. Darwin need not have sweated if he had seen airport behavior of Homo sapiens. And the second rush to catch the bus.
After that, once again your luck is based on your previous birth’s vocation. If you are really that serial killer, you get a middle or aisle seat. And the heaviest two creatures in the country are specially seated next to you. And worse is that these are heavy incontinent creatures. They need to piss every 5th minute. And they squeeze you to get out and in the process, damage your bladder irreversibly that you also start suffering from incontinence yourself. Then you also get to know the recent life history of other creatures around you, because till the doors are closed these guys speak loud in the phone about all silly stuff. It is an ugly sight to see funny looking not so gentlemen cooing in the phone, which makes shouting more acceptable. Somehow they stop and you start feeling you are now settled and believe that your parole is imminent. But it doesn’t end so soon. If you are dozing and your neighbors also manage to do that without pissing, the air hostess will wake you up to find out whether you want to have that stupid fresh lime juice served in a bottle that pygmies use. I intend to flick these ‘Do not disturb’ signs from the hotels and hang it on my neck next time I fly.
Or you will have your neighbor peering either into your laptop or what you read. Worse is that my yesterday’s co-passenger wanted to borrow my phone. Or they punish by serving food. And the whole aircraft starts stinking of what is supposed to be a fragrance from good food. Or the captain punishes you with incessant talking with an accent deliberately put on, giving us useless information about whether we are flying with easterly or westerly winds. How many times he would have attempted showing Tirupathi to me only God knows. (I have not been lucky even once to really see it though, maybe the Pilot suffers from an illusion that he sees the God, which we can’t)
When the ordeal finally gets over, you are by then used to hasty heroes and their attempt to get home like Superman. And the phones get flipped the next minute and there is cacophony. And you are also used to negotiating the trolleys while picking the baggage.
And to my dismay, the entire flight all you get to see outside is the clouds like balls of cotton, as opposed to the lovely & scenic train or road ride. But for the time constraint, I guess trains are better any day than flights.
But one needs to fly anyway. So I have decided to become the President of India to make this agony more bearable.
Firstly, the airports are now very crowded. Almost no one appears to go by train these days. All of them are flying. So, there are long queues for everything. From check-in to the lavatories! If you are flying Indian Airlines, then you can be certain that, in your last birth you were a serial killer. Maybe you killed babies. Only then you deserve such kind of punishment. There will be two staff manning the counters for a million people. And they work in super slow motion. Either they are seriously afflicted with some nervous disorder that their limbs can only do 10% of what normal people do, or they just don’t care a damn about you. After a lifetime of checking and issuing the boarding pass (mind you they are Gods, they will not ask you which seat you prefer, they have been generous enough to consent flying you in their aircraft) you then proceed to the security check.
This is another drama. Many people are first time flyers and there is no proper help. I am seeing atleast every 3rd person being turned back to check in what they are not supposed to carry in person. The checking while being perfunctory is once again super slow. They enjoy your discomfort of standing on a platform with arms spread. Maybe they are recruited from Yamaloha straight. And this damn metal detector beeps for everything. For me atleast!! I don’t how on earth they make out which beep is a bomb–beep. And I get very nervous as it beeps when it travels down on me. It is the belt buckle honestly, but as the Sardar Kushwant has written, something made of steel could be there. :p I meant the coins! And then you go back to collect your bag which is unceremoniously thrown somewhere.
Then starts the fun. Our hasty heroes come into play. The rush to pick up Economic Times could beat Carl Lewis in his heydays. The way they run and grab the copies convinces me that we evolved from animals. Darwin need not have sweated if he had seen airport behavior of Homo sapiens. And the second rush to catch the bus.
After that, once again your luck is based on your previous birth’s vocation. If you are really that serial killer, you get a middle or aisle seat. And the heaviest two creatures in the country are specially seated next to you. And worse is that these are heavy incontinent creatures. They need to piss every 5th minute. And they squeeze you to get out and in the process, damage your bladder irreversibly that you also start suffering from incontinence yourself. Then you also get to know the recent life history of other creatures around you, because till the doors are closed these guys speak loud in the phone about all silly stuff. It is an ugly sight to see funny looking not so gentlemen cooing in the phone, which makes shouting more acceptable. Somehow they stop and you start feeling you are now settled and believe that your parole is imminent. But it doesn’t end so soon. If you are dozing and your neighbors also manage to do that without pissing, the air hostess will wake you up to find out whether you want to have that stupid fresh lime juice served in a bottle that pygmies use. I intend to flick these ‘Do not disturb’ signs from the hotels and hang it on my neck next time I fly.
Or you will have your neighbor peering either into your laptop or what you read. Worse is that my yesterday’s co-passenger wanted to borrow my phone. Or they punish by serving food. And the whole aircraft starts stinking of what is supposed to be a fragrance from good food. Or the captain punishes you with incessant talking with an accent deliberately put on, giving us useless information about whether we are flying with easterly or westerly winds. How many times he would have attempted showing Tirupathi to me only God knows. (I have not been lucky even once to really see it though, maybe the Pilot suffers from an illusion that he sees the God, which we can’t)
When the ordeal finally gets over, you are by then used to hasty heroes and their attempt to get home like Superman. And the phones get flipped the next minute and there is cacophony. And you are also used to negotiating the trolleys while picking the baggage.
And to my dismay, the entire flight all you get to see outside is the clouds like balls of cotton, as opposed to the lovely & scenic train or road ride. But for the time constraint, I guess trains are better any day than flights.
But one needs to fly anyway. So I have decided to become the President of India to make this agony more bearable.
3 comments:
Good Stuff!!
I must say that you are in FULL FLIGHT here...eminently enjoyable piece
Insires me to write a piece on the experience of flying Deccan..and equally hair raising episode!
I am wondering what is more funny - TS on the blog, or TS in person... or maybe both... It was hilarious. I almost got the feeling that TS was speaking to me out of the browser as I read that piece !!!!!!!!
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