My recent transfer to Kolkata and a few personal obligations at
Mumbai, have resulted in many frequent flights between Kolkata and
Mumbai. Waiting at airports and long time spent inside aircrafts with
almost nothing to do, makes me notice a few things. Some memories are
good enough to make it to my diary pages. Here are few paragraphs from
my airline diaries.
1) Our Magical airports: Our airports are magical places. They have strange and different effects on different people. First and most common effect is that people forget their mother-tongue. No matter what race, breed ,caste or state, they start speaking in English. “Ya.. dude” replaces the old junk “Hello” and “Aai” becomes “Momma”. This rapid ascent from being Indian to a firang remains incomplete as accent still remains the same desi one. Kids and infants are the innocent victims as they are forced to sleep listening to a lullaby they have never heard before. “ So jaa re mere chanda “ is dubbed into “ Sleep Sleep My moon son”. And Yes, no one picks the Hindi news daily from the complimentary news paper stall.
2) The Benjamin Button Effect : Those who think Movie “ The curious case of Benjamin Button” is nothing but fiction, can’t be more farther from truth. A few aunties travel at least 30 years back in time once they reach airport. They become so modern and young, that they can embarrass Lindsay Lohan. The designer shades are invariably fired from their normal job of hiding eyes and given a job of hair band. Jackets are no longer on their bodies but rest in their arms, leaving behind a flimsy T-shirt, which leaves nothing to imagine.I heard someone whispering: “ Chachu Mujhe Paseene kyun aa rahe hain?”
3) The litmus test of seat selection: You can easily tell a lot about a person with his/her choice of seat. A new kid on the block would invariably chose the window seat. The moment you ask for a window seat, you tattoo word ”Rookie” on your forehead. A guy who wants to see outside the window. They are yet to realize that real beauty is inside the aircraft asking you” Sir, what will you prefer? Coffee , Tea or …. ( She never mentions the third option, but that’s the option you hear the loudest. ) A person who has passed the initial stage of being a NewBie will always ask for an Aisle seat. These guys are like Dr Hannibal Lector, who wants to be close enough to the Airhostess to smell which cologne she is wearing and whether her lip gloss is strawberry or papaya. The guys asking for middle ones have seen the world outside the window enough and are too tired to try their luck like aisle- seat- people. In my view they are not passengers, they will be equally happy if they are given seats with the check-in luggage.
4) The Airhostess : No diary can be complete without a separate section on Airhostesses. Whoever invented the concept of airhostesses, was a visionary none less than the Wright brothers who invented aircrafts. Statistics proves that a beautiful and sexy airhostess can bring you more passengers than a 50% flat discount on airfare. Airhostesses are the biggest attraction of air travel beyond doubt. Brand recall in Airline companies is also called Airhostess recall. People remember nothing but airhostesses when they go home. An airhostess is nothing less than an inspiration for a poet. She is damsel in distress personified. Such beautiful girls forced to serve water, coffee, even clean toilets!! Worst part of their job is looking at groin area of each passenger and asking “ Sir please wear the seat belt”. Where else would you see such beautiful girls so modest, so caring and so obedient. ( Please ..I am not talking about those movies, talk about reality!!)
5) The Maharaja Experience: There is only one airline service which has given “service differention “ all together a different meaning. While other airlines' talk about professionalism and schedule adherence results in still being just another airline, Air India is well differentiated from its competitors by providing a completely different “family experience”. The family experience starts with the old man you encounter at the counter for boarding pass. The man talks to you in same manner, your angry dad used to talk to you when you flunked in Mathemetics. The security guy’s shouting reminds you of your worst teacher. But you forget all the painful memories as soon as you enter the aircraft. The Airhostess reminds you of your mother, mausi or at least your aunty. No I am not referring to their bad make up, I am simply talking about their age. So you don’t get angry when she does not come to you even after calling her for half an hour. Did you ever get angry with your mom?
6) The maternity ward wait : I have always found many similarities between waiting outside a maternity ward and waiting for your luggage at the luggage belt. In both cases , you know it will come but don’t know when. In both cases, you might have to wait for hours. Waiting in a hospital corridor for your kid , you are afraid because you have heard cases of newly borns getting swapped. At luggage belt, you are scared because your luggage might get swapped. Passengers who have lost their luggage and are protesting in front of airline officials remind you of those unlucky souls who met with a failed delivery. One more similarity: People wait with a pram for the kid at the hospital, here people wait with trolleys for their luggage.
As goes in our Bollywood movies, your airline journey also has a happy ending. You come out of the terminal building and see a few guys waiting to enter the airport. Their mannerism makes you feel as that they could easily be selected for the movie Dostana-2. When you pass by them, you hear one of them saying “ Security check is the best part of my airtravel. I always look forward to getting frisked by another man, I tell you na... It feels so nice.” You take your cab and go home.. Smiling..
© Shekhar Suman
1) Our Magical airports: Our airports are magical places. They have strange and different effects on different people. First and most common effect is that people forget their mother-tongue. No matter what race, breed ,caste or state, they start speaking in English. “Ya.. dude” replaces the old junk “Hello” and “Aai” becomes “Momma”. This rapid ascent from being Indian to a firang remains incomplete as accent still remains the same desi one. Kids and infants are the innocent victims as they are forced to sleep listening to a lullaby they have never heard before. “ So jaa re mere chanda “ is dubbed into “ Sleep Sleep My moon son”. And Yes, no one picks the Hindi news daily from the complimentary news paper stall.
2) The Benjamin Button Effect : Those who think Movie “ The curious case of Benjamin Button” is nothing but fiction, can’t be more farther from truth. A few aunties travel at least 30 years back in time once they reach airport. They become so modern and young, that they can embarrass Lindsay Lohan. The designer shades are invariably fired from their normal job of hiding eyes and given a job of hair band. Jackets are no longer on their bodies but rest in their arms, leaving behind a flimsy T-shirt, which leaves nothing to imagine.I heard someone whispering: “ Chachu Mujhe Paseene kyun aa rahe hain?”
3) The litmus test of seat selection: You can easily tell a lot about a person with his/her choice of seat. A new kid on the block would invariably chose the window seat. The moment you ask for a window seat, you tattoo word ”Rookie” on your forehead. A guy who wants to see outside the window. They are yet to realize that real beauty is inside the aircraft asking you” Sir, what will you prefer? Coffee , Tea or …. ( She never mentions the third option, but that’s the option you hear the loudest. ) A person who has passed the initial stage of being a NewBie will always ask for an Aisle seat. These guys are like Dr Hannibal Lector, who wants to be close enough to the Airhostess to smell which cologne she is wearing and whether her lip gloss is strawberry or papaya. The guys asking for middle ones have seen the world outside the window enough and are too tired to try their luck like aisle- seat- people. In my view they are not passengers, they will be equally happy if they are given seats with the check-in luggage.
4) The Airhostess : No diary can be complete without a separate section on Airhostesses. Whoever invented the concept of airhostesses, was a visionary none less than the Wright brothers who invented aircrafts. Statistics proves that a beautiful and sexy airhostess can bring you more passengers than a 50% flat discount on airfare. Airhostesses are the biggest attraction of air travel beyond doubt. Brand recall in Airline companies is also called Airhostess recall. People remember nothing but airhostesses when they go home. An airhostess is nothing less than an inspiration for a poet. She is damsel in distress personified. Such beautiful girls forced to serve water, coffee, even clean toilets!! Worst part of their job is looking at groin area of each passenger and asking “ Sir please wear the seat belt”. Where else would you see such beautiful girls so modest, so caring and so obedient. ( Please ..I am not talking about those movies, talk about reality!!)
5) The Maharaja Experience: There is only one airline service which has given “service differention “ all together a different meaning. While other airlines' talk about professionalism and schedule adherence results in still being just another airline, Air India is well differentiated from its competitors by providing a completely different “family experience”. The family experience starts with the old man you encounter at the counter for boarding pass. The man talks to you in same manner, your angry dad used to talk to you when you flunked in Mathemetics. The security guy’s shouting reminds you of your worst teacher. But you forget all the painful memories as soon as you enter the aircraft. The Airhostess reminds you of your mother, mausi or at least your aunty. No I am not referring to their bad make up, I am simply talking about their age. So you don’t get angry when she does not come to you even after calling her for half an hour. Did you ever get angry with your mom?
6) The maternity ward wait : I have always found many similarities between waiting outside a maternity ward and waiting for your luggage at the luggage belt. In both cases , you know it will come but don’t know when. In both cases, you might have to wait for hours. Waiting in a hospital corridor for your kid , you are afraid because you have heard cases of newly borns getting swapped. At luggage belt, you are scared because your luggage might get swapped. Passengers who have lost their luggage and are protesting in front of airline officials remind you of those unlucky souls who met with a failed delivery. One more similarity: People wait with a pram for the kid at the hospital, here people wait with trolleys for their luggage.
As goes in our Bollywood movies, your airline journey also has a happy ending. You come out of the terminal building and see a few guys waiting to enter the airport. Their mannerism makes you feel as that they could easily be selected for the movie Dostana-2. When you pass by them, you hear one of them saying “ Security check is the best part of my airtravel. I always look forward to getting frisked by another man, I tell you na... It feels so nice.” You take your cab and go home.. Smiling..
© Shekhar Suman
No comments:
Post a Comment