It simply doesn’t matter how many times i travel by a plane, I always have the jitters just before I get onto one. Just to think that the massive hunk of “Light Weight Aluminium and Carbon fibre” will take off the ground and will fly “As the crow flies “and will get me to my destination in a matter of few hours. Despite the “soothing” bollywood instrumental tunes and the mechanical yet hilarious display of where the emergency exits are and where i should stuff my face if i cant breathe or want to throw up, I still hold onto my side rests like it were the only things keeping me from gently wobbling and floating into space for eternity. After i feel the jerk of when the wheels are being retracted into the massive body, I instantly relax, if only for a moment. I try reading listening to music and try my best to engross myself in appreciating the fine cuisine served on an airplane. Till date that is the only thing that serves to distract me from seriously contemplating gruesome ugly burnt deaths for all of us on board the airplane. I try to appreciate the beauty of the attendants, but Alas!!If I want food to distract me, there cannot be any beauty to appreciate, as the full service airlines tend to have attendants strictly over the age of 50 only. Once we hit the stipulated 35000 feet, my body almost over reacts, my toes get cold, my palms get sweaty, my ear begins to block out all noises. I try to make nervous conversation with my immediate neighbour who is invariably the most boring human being all humanity has ever seen or an over curious parent who wants to know all about the entrance exams to get into a hallowed mba college, not understanding that his/her kid might want to have nothing to do with an mba and wants to do Art history for chrissakes. Every little air-pocket we hit, I am convinced that we are going to crash and burn like CPM did in these elections. I stick my fat nose to the plexi-glass window and hope to dear god that i see some light. Literally.
Then, I see lights. I am ecstatic. Just then the pilot decides to pull a cruel trick on me and climbs up again to the hallowed heights and does a turning trick on me. The machine sways to one side and I am sure that the visions of death I have been seeing are going to come true. I f the plane hovers for too long after i see the lights, I get a feeling we are going to hijacked are going to be crashed into the nearest sky scraper of monumental commercial importance. If the plane decides to land too quickly, I think we are going to crash into a populous suburb of a big city killing everyone in sight. The plane finally decides to land. High time that!!I can feel the sickening jolt in my stomach when the wheels hit the ground and the sudden braking of the plane. Every lesson in physics I have learnt about momentum and inertia springs to my head. Only when the plane stops, does my life return back to me.I run for the exit with all the gall left in me. Yes!!I am one of those losers who runs for the exit before the plane halts.hey!!!Its my life...Don’t you judge!!!
I might go through real hell while in the plane but the most gratifying moment is when I see the city lights spring up underneath me out of no where. There is no beautiful sight than seeing humans as scurrying little rats going about their motions. The main roads, those twinkling lights of cars. The vision of my physics professor yelling about Doppler effect and Newton’s work on Optics define all the thoughts that run through my head at that point in time.
A tiny little trivia about me before i end this nonsensical post. The first time I flew which was when I was in UKG.I remember vividly, Me in my pink frock with two little pig tails, flying all alone from Chennai to Bangalore in Indian Airlines. I stuffed my fist with as many of those tamarind toffees as i could, religiously stuffed my ears with cotton because my mother said so. I waited with abated breath to confirm my best fears, if the clouds were really huge blobs of ice cream and cotton candy.
Innocence was destroyed that day.Period.
