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
