10 July 2021 06:00 am Views - 495
Airliners today seem to be carrying what seems like the whole population of a country within a single steel tube. The moment you are airborne from one end of the aircraft would emerge two steel containers on either side of the aisles, led by a forward guard and propelled from the back by another member bringing up the rear. God help you if you happen to experience a call of nature at this time. To cross your legs and let your thoughts dwell on subjects other than waterfalls or anything liquid in nature would be the wiser course of action. The food service has been simplified, if you are not a seasoned traveler and have embarked with visions of all those beautiful advertisements that has a stewardess with an angelic smile leaning over you with a succulent looking dish, put these thoughts out of your mind, instead prepare for a multiple choice, question and answer session in which you have only a few moments to prepare, and remember clarification of the questions is frowned upon. However, not every journey has to be clinically sterile as I have described, some can be memorable.
Arriving at the departure lounge of the Chennai airport from Colombo you require a keen ear and linguistic skills to decipher the announcements coming over the public address system announcing flights. Its a little difficult to catch the gist of the message especially over the almost constant cacophony of loud conversations. The decibel levels are very similar to the conversations I have with my mum when I call from overseas, she has a firm belief that louder you speak, the better the chances of being heard over the seas. I usually place the receiver a safe distance away from my ear. It was into this scenario that my high-flying companion and I stepped into one fine morning. The highflyer is a veteran in the airline business, the PR man’s PR man. We arrived on a flight from Colombo to Chennai our final destination Cochin. My companion to make the final arrangements for the inaugural flight of the airline to this city, and myself in my capacity as an Event Producer to ensure a memorable evening to mark the occasion.
The portly gentleman sprawled across the seats buried in the morning paper at this part of the proceedings came to life, grabbing a life jacket he proceeded to follow the announcement, having entered a little late into the act he was in a race against time to catch up with the announcer, but his late entrance could be forgiven for the enthusiasm he showed in pointing us in the right direction. By this we could safely surmise he was part of the crew. The two matronly ladies who had greeted us on arrival were getting in their morning constitutional pushing a meal cart up the aisle, a delicious repast of Idly’s, coconut chutney and vadai’s were placed before us with the golden brown orbs of delicious gulab jamuns swimming in syrup as a dessert Without further ado we tucked in, our hostesses seemed pleased at our healthy appetites and when we expressed our appreciation of the dessert they immediately produced more, unprecedented in the history of air travel.
We began explaining our predicament to the ladies manning the check-in counter, they seemed quite amused by the thought and called in the Airport Manager. The Airport Manager arrived, a imposing sight with a magnificent, well-tended pair of handlebar moustaches, he looked at us and made clicking sounds with his tongue expressing his disbelief, “ What do you do Saar” he asked my travel companion, my travel companion sheepishly informed him that he happened to Head the Operations of a multinational airline back home, this was followed by a raised eyebrow and more clucking and clicking on the part of handle bar Harry, we were led in a little procession comprising Handlebar Harry, some of the ladies from the check-in counter and the both of us, the staff pausing occasionally to explain to curious bystanders our predicament which they for some reason found highly amusing. There at the head of the gangway stood our two matrons genuinely happy to see our return , all smiles “where did you go,” one asked. I was almost expecting her to wave a admonishing finger and add a “you naughty boy,” to this. They settled us in our seats, plied us with food, highly taken by our little misadventure, and off we went to Cochin. This time we did arrive at the correct airport. My travel companion still insists that this little detour was my fault; I stand by my defense that he was the airline man and I wasn’t.