My Flight into India!

I had entrusted my life in the loving hands of “Cathay Pacific” to get me to Chennai a month back and the journey itself into “Kamaraj International Airport” was uneventful except for a single thing.

I generally, as a rule do not have non-veg on flights and so I specifically wanted “Indian Vegetarian” on my flight but I did not realize that I would get served the same thing TRICE! When I got served some rice, with palak and cauliflower sabzi the first time, I actually liked it. When I got it the second time, it did not look all that appetizing but I lost it completely when I received it the third time!!!

But since I had been sitting in a complex yogic pose in the cramped economy seat for so many hours, I just did not have the energy to even show my dissent. Only the thought of reaching Chennai egged me on to eat that. But seriously, sitting in an economy class seat for 20 hours, anyone would feel as uncomfortable as Mammootty when he dances.

But the biggest sin that she had committed was that she woke me up to feed me that stuff!!!!!! She woke me up from my yoga-nidra!!!!!!

All of us have our own methods to deal with the ordeal (curse) called “trans-continental flight”. Some people prefer the aisle seat. Some prefer getting up every hour to exercise their limbs and some people prefer to get drunk and some rich people prefer the business class. But the way I deal with flights is that I hop onto the window seat so that I don’t get disturbed by anyone, and attain a trance-like state with minimum functioning of the sensory and rotary muscles during the entire flight. I also have the perfect playlist of songs which can induce sleep in any circumstances.

So at about 1 AM, Monday morning (11^th Jan 2010), I reached the brilliant Kamaraj International Airport, half an hour ahead of schedule thanks to a generous tail wind courtesy our Lord Vayu and I felt confident that I would be outside soon but fate deemed otherwise. Apparently four other flights had also landed around that time and there was a sea of people at the airport. We were all shepherded into a room where we had to get tested for Swine Flu.

One of the basic things that we learn in high school physics is that the entropy level in the world is always increasing. But our fine country has managed to increase it to insane levels and take a PhD on it. Once we were in the hall, no one knew what to do.

The great thinkers had also come up with a sure shot way to battle Swine Flu and it was also a medical checkup free process. All we had to do was confuse and confound the Swine Flu virus by reading to it, the Medical Form!!!! I am quite sure that the Temperature scanners and the other high-funda stuff that they had there were mere props to frighten and intimidate the virus.

There was a surplus of medical forms scattered all across the hall but no pens were available. So finally, I managed to grab a pen from the patrolling security and filled the form.

After answering questions like “Do you have Swine Flu”, “Do you have cold, cough, fever” etc, we all had to get it attested by the medical doctor and that was when we got to witness the great Indian game called “Breaking the queue”. The poor doctor was hounded by everyone at the same time and well, I also did the same. A few poor foreigners tried standing in line but they never reached anywhere. A few other foreigners had given up and they sat down at the side biding their time.

And so after a treacherously long 30 minutes where I had to wrestle with so many people, I reached the doctor.

The poor harried soul bleated, “Swine Flu erukka Saar?” (Do you have Swine Flu?)

I stated my case, “Chance-ae-ella”. (No Chance) and I also wanted to finish that up with “that is all, your honor” like our great actor, Mammootty in Narasimham, but I could sense that no one was in any particular mood to indulge in any friendly banter.

He attested my medical form and I then had to stand in the emigration queue for another eternity. Once that was done, I then had to collect my baggage. Nobody knew when and where the bags were coming out for our flight. It took us sometime to realize that it was coming out on carousel number 7.

We waited and waited and waited for some more time for our bags but they never came out!!!! Some people even left to grab some breakfast.

When we inquired about this strange occurrence, the guy in charge said, “Eppo varum Saar” (Will come now Sir), with the imperative word being “eppo” (now).

I lost all count of time waiting for the bags and finally after a long time, they started coming out in batches. Finally my two bags came out in the 26^th batch and I then stepped out at 3: 30 AM!!!!!!!!!

My poor relatives had been waiting from 1:30 onwards but I did not even have a phone to inform them. Finally, I reached home at about 3: 45 AM and felt better only when I had my cup of coffee.

I sincerely believe that we have order in all that chaos but it takes an Indian to spot it…………..

Advertisement