An astonished journey..

After a successful release of the project, I felt rational and objective to evaluating or dealing with the past situations. That was my mind, grown weary due to the state of being oppressed. I wanted to move out of Bangalore for a day at least. I had booked the ticket one day before I had flown. I had a plan to take off from Bangalore on Friday morning and land back on Monday Morning...

This post is a recap of my Journey (Feb 2008) to Pune. I had been to my friend’s (Sweta) house. That’s my second home.
As you all are familiar with the agony of ‘road traffic’, which is ‘exclusively licensed’ in Bangalore. I took two hours to reach the Airport. It had not happened the first time when I hurried towards the Airport or the Railway station. It’s my destiny and I have an allegiance about the journey that is - “If everything seems to be going well, I have obviously overlooked something”. So it always enables me to clinch lucrative deals with the fast action :-).

I had almost missed the flight. There was a last and final call for me. Needless to say, I just ran towards the checking gate. My adventures began at the security gate when I entered the flight…everybody caught unawares and had fashioned expressions. Like They were just waiting for me :-) My seat number was not properly perceptible to the eye due to the coarse sign of the stamp. I stealth fully used my ninja skills to confirm the seat number. I got to my seat and sat down.

Meanwhile, the ‘safety’ instructions were given by flight crew. Some of the efficacious and statistical informations were -

1. Smoking is prohibited. Any person caught smoking will be asked to ‘leave the flight immediately’. I genuinely wanted to know - "Is that possible in thousands feet above in the air????"
2. Your seat cushions can be used for floatation in the event of an emergency water landing. Thankfully, they didn’t add - please take them with our compliments.
3. There may be 50 ways to leave your husband or wife, but there was only 4 ‘way’ out of the Flight.

After the diminution of my mind I noticed there was a kid sitting beside me, almost 3 years old. Instantly, a ‘person’ came reluctantly from the rear of the flight and sat down. Looked like a "happy family". A cutest daughter was sitting beside her distraught dad as I thought. However, they were not facing each other.

The ‘person’ had wore black glasses inside the flight –

I appreciated his "determination" for holding BLACK glasses "inside the flight" and I conjectured his purpose – Is he a blind?? Or he bought a new "chashma".
Again! I thought he is a celebrity and didn't want to be noticed. Fortunately he was not looking like any "khans”, "kapoors"and "Kumars" or any cricket-kars like Gavaskar or Tendulkar.

Although, the flight was going till Pune, still without squandering more time, he asked a million dollar question - "Are you going to Pune??"

I wanted to tell him "God knows! Actually, I want to go to BHATINDA. Forcefully, this poor caption is taking the flight to Pune”. Ufff!!! Can’t help…however I replied - "yeah! I am going to Pune".

I didn't fire any question on him. Eventually, the ‘kid’ started talking to me ‘only’. The ‘person’ tried to pursue the ‘kid’. However there was an angry silence. I thought, he might have not fulfilled her peremptory demands so she is angry and doesn't want to talk. Honestly! That "kid" reminded me of my childhood :-). Well, take it easy!!!

After a while, he wanted to place an order for a veg sandwich. Before that he had an intelligent doubt and asked in an archaic manner- Is! the "Sandwich" good??

What do you expect from the flight Attendant ?? Would she/he say – “No!! Not at all, it’s terrible and made of adulterated cement. You should be ‘innovatively challenged’ to bite it”. Nevertheless, that Attendant replied - Yes Sir! It’s good. He took a plate of sandwich and offered the kid too. AGAIN!! That kid’s growled reaction was not responsorial. It was neutral instead. I profaned ‘Newton’ because his law “For every action there is an equal and an opposite reaction” failed here and I realised “every ‘kind’ action has a ‘not-so-kind’ reaction”. Finally, I prevailed myself that ‘she is angry with him’.

The ‘person’ was tired of ‘our’ enormously positive attitude and had started READING the magazine or otherwise…

We were about to reach Pune and heard an announcement –

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have reached our cruising altitude now, so we are going to switch the seat belt sign off. Please stay inside the flight till we land”. I think they were concerned about the prepaid auto and taxi wala. Whether any passenger could use their personal ‘parachute’ instead, to fly from the flight to their destinations directly, before the flight land to the Airport of course!!!!!!!!

When the flight landed, the scene was entirely different. A lady from the front seat already having a kid nearly 3 to 4 months got up and sneaked the ‘kid’ away who was sitting beside me. The scenery of a verdure garden was moving away and a ball of my doubt bowled as if to break one way that actually broke in the opposite way –GOOGLYYY!!!!!! I just looked at the ‘person’ and could feel his reaction and vice versa. I uttered – I thought the ‘kid’ is with you. I could see the question mark in his face because he was thinking that the ‘kid’ is with me. I asked for such an upbringing reason and he had given a few valid and observant points of which some were –

Firstly, more or less the kid has a look as you have.
Secondly, you both are in almost the same attire, which was ‘white coloured’ (off white is never considerable for me :-))
The third and the most effective point for that I had given him hundred points out of hundred, was - “the ‘kid’ and ‘you’ were not ready to accept the pleasant affairs, also I was not pretentious enough to pursue the ‘kid’ or ‘you’”. I felt that we both (the kid and me) have a ‘genetic diseases’, which is – “don’t talk to me” and it is not easy to be cured.”

I had not given any explanation or excuses, just gave a gentle smile and said ‘good bye’ to him…..

A lesson that I learnt from this incident was – “Don’t believe in your doubts and doubt in your beliefs.”

This was my second ‘best’ journey. The first one was in Diwali - Oct 2005 when Karnataka was flooded. The flights and trains had cancelled from Bangalore due to the heavy rainfall. However, Lovish (one of my ever best friend) and I had an adventurous time with others in Tamilnadu Express.

And I believe there are more adventures to come….

“Khadus! As he felt ;)”