Flying can be a joyous thing if you are a Mallya or a retard or both. For the rest of us, it includes minor pains like inadequate leg space, plastic looking stewardesses, nauseating turbulence, ThinkPad inspired food trays and of course, heartbreaks. (Sigh! Those pilots...) Anyway, this post is dedicated to Air India - that aviatory antediluvian whose staff are so dedicated to their work that they age thrice as fast as their counterparts in other airlines. I had this early morning flight from Bombay to Bangalore. Or Mumbai to Bengalloorrooo. Now in Mumbai, there are two terminals. One is on the ground floor, has all your favorite airlines' check-in counters, lots of crowd and uniformed people looking all business-like. The second one is on the second floor of another building (far enough to make you want to kill yourself if you ever went to the wrong terminal), and the mightiest example of irony in the Vile Parle vicinity. Where else would you find a row of red uniformed, doll-like women sitting back to back to a row of middle-aged, watchdog-like men? The contrast is so stark it must seem like fantasyland to most men. That is if their sensory organs are still working unlike this chap who gave me an aisle seat when asked for a window one. I trudge onwards to the waiting area from where we are to take the shuttle, which arrives soon enough. Remember my destination was Bangalore? The driver evidently knew that and so we spent the next 25 minutes going around the airfield to the plane. They probably assumed (with good reason) that Bangaloreans have the patience to make a minimum travel of half an hour to anywhere and so we were treated to the sight of Turkish Airlines, Kuwaiti Airlines, the Airlines-that-no-one-uses-and-has-been-grounded-but-has some-funny-name-on-it and other such Middle Eastern wonders on our way before we reached. I remember thinking that if this had been an Adam Sandler movie, the driver would have been a tanned Rob Schneider with an exaggerated Indian accent saying ‘You can do it!!’ to someone about to puke. We then get onto this plane hidden in the midst of other big Boeing mamas only to be greeted by er... well... aunties? (That age group, and the automatic reference is aunty, maybe on a rare occasion, Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom) We are seated and some of us reminded to kindly put the seat upright for takeoff, much on the lines of my headmistress telling us to stand up for the school prayer assembly. I had got a window seat after using my charms
