A Different kind of Flight

I was traveling from Chicago to Delhi on Air India flight 126. Good thing about this fight is its a nonstop flight. You can reach Delhi within 14 hours. Sometimes, people may feel bored in such long flights. But for me who has traveled 24 hours in train, it’s not a big deal. In train, we have many things to do, we can stretch, talk to more people, buy some stuff to eat. In flight, we speak with less people, but can watch movies, eat free food. So we can say that 15 hours flight is equivalent to 24 hours train. For me, both doesn’t matter. Once you sit idle for a very long time, you get used to it. You don’t need something to feed your mind all the time, just to keep it busy. In other words, you become stable and attain a state where you don’t need to speak with anyone. Sometimes you may want to voluntarily run from people to avoid them. You are more comfortable in your own world. Don’t get it confused that you are an introvert. You just don’t need someone to keep you busy. The thing is you can keep your company happy only if you are happy on your own. I think, I have mastered this. I also fear that I no longer want to speak with anyone, I mean anyone at all. This thing is considered rude sometimes. People even call me Baba (Saint), well in a way everyone is.

Anyway, let’s come back to our flight. Normally in flights you face issues such as your neighbor is falling on you or a baby is crying continuously. This was a different kind of flight, it had added flavors. This is International cum local flight as it travels overseas but has all Indians. Fun started as soon as the boarding was complete. An uncle came into flight and kept his luggage over a lady’s luggage. So the lady stood up and says to uncle “you are keeping your stuff over mines”. Uncle replies “it is a shared space, all of us have to adjust.” She says “ok, but you should not keep luggage over mines”. Uncle replies again “it’s a shared space, if you want personal, then it’s a problem”. Lady calls crew members and complaints that I am being abused. Crew members understand the situation, apologizes to lady and tries to make this uncle understand the same. This uncle is not ready to listen and he is in his own ego. After some time, he changes his luggage to another place as space is available. Sometimes people can be rude like this even in a flight.

After some time, this uncle and his neighbors started talking and laughing in loud voice, even I was getting disturbed due to same. I didn’t slept night before and wanted to take some rest. Already angry lady calls crew manager this time and complaints regarding the same. Again crew member’s tries to make this rude uncle understand, but some people are different. Every class have back benchers. Crew members even says “why don’t you just drink and sleep”. That was a well said statement, in other words it means “Shut the fuck up”. If I was in uncle’s place, I would have felt embarrassed.

Crew manager was trying to calm this situation down and some people started fighting, literally hitting each other. They threatened to even make the plane land, which was funny. You can’t make the plane land just because you have some problems with your neighbour. The situation was so intense that crew had to separate them by allocating seats separately.

Then another person started complaining that people are passing through the baby section and causing inconvenience. I have never seen such a funny flight and I travel at least every six months. 

Last but not the least and the serious one. An old uncle had a seizure (minor attack, I guess) and he stopped responding. Crew members called for a Doctor on plane and since it was Air India, you can expect doctors and engineers. Suddenly 4 doctors came rushing towards patient, one of them was a senior doctor. He started analyzing and probing what could have happened. Within 15 minutes, a saline was in place and patient started responding to treatment. For a moment everyone thought, he is gone, but these doctors acted as an angel and saved poor man’s soul. This is why this profession is considered above all. I was speaking to a neighbor “is this a regular situation in Air India or its today's special”. “its today's special” he replied. This guy was sitting next to rude uncle and ahead of angry lady. A miserable situation to be in. He was calling that rude uncle a joker, if uncle would have listened to it that would have become another situation in this blog. Ha ha ha.

I was telling him to pray that we don’t need another situation until this flight lands, these are enough for a flight.