“The big metal tube looks so huge!
In the skies it takes refuge!
Getting to any place is smooth and cool!
Tis just a big jet and not any tool!”
With the advent of low cost flights and economy flights, taking a flight is not an uncommon thing!
Growing up though we had only heard stories of how it was to go in a plane! My mother always used to tell us about how when we were young we went in the flight but that had never got registered in my memory so my first flight of my own was for all practical purposes the first flight ever!
Read on!
I still remember the little black dress which was a single dress which I am sure now that it was meant for a girl and not a boy which my mother made me wear for the first flight!
She used to tell that the flight was called folk of friendship and for years till now I used to remember it like that only!
Recently I got to know that it was actually called Fokker F27 Friendship! I guess it was close enough!
Mom used to tell that I started crying in the flight and the air hostess gave me some candies! When I took my daughter on her first flight even she was crying constantly and I was moving up and down the corridor lifting and trying to console her!
My mother used to tell how the folk of friendship would sway right and left and move like a bus on air! Which is probably why for a long time she did not step on any plane till I took her on the very first one after the folk to the Holy City of Varanasi! Am sure that she would have held me in my first flight! Which is why my equally nervous and anxious mother had me holding her hand throughout the flight! I had got her a tab to play games in the flight and while landing and take off and would try to deviate her mind with that!
Her grip on my hand would gently increase with the landing and take off and it would ease slowly! The only reason she got in that flight was to see the holy Ganga aarthi in person! She would see that every day and the day when she…
Even in Banaras she just sat seeing the puja and there was a calm and satisfaction in her eye which was rare. Of course after that many flights were taken and she was really getting confident and comfortable!
So coming to my first flight on my own was when I had just finished my internship and joined a famous drug index company as a medical writer! For twenty years after my first flight as a kid, I only used to dream about going by a flight! We had almost gone by a flight on our trip to Missamari but then that’s another story!
With absolutely no flight for so long I was sent to Mumbai by flight and in the same trip sent to Hyderabad and finally back to Bangalore! That was three flights in three days!
Those were the days when the flight tickets were like a whole book! Not the print out or a QR code of the day! No one really asked for any ID card for domestic flights at least and if you had the ticket then that was all which was needed!
It was an early morning flight and I had booked a taxi and confirmed it twice! Mom got up early and was getting ready to make some hot food and I told her that it may be provided in the flight! But still she packed a couple of her famous aloo parathas which of course were more delicious than any airline food!
Since I had packed light I had no trouble in getting through the security which those days were very light for domestic flights! The old HAL airport was small and cozy!
My bags were so light but still I checked them in since I did not know that we could carry them! I was too tensed and scared to ask!
The flight was on time and it was Jet Airways (while the subsequent ones were air India). The seats were so comfortable and only two! It was not cramped as now and mostly we used to walk to the flight from the reception.
I may be the only person in the whole flight who was intently listening to the air hostess giving instructions and by habit I still do! I had to closely watch my neighbor who was bemused on how to put in the seat belt! For better or worse I did not even push the seat back when it was allowed in the air! Same with the top light button! Taking off and landing was so smooth but still my heart skips a beat!
Those days in flight food was something to look forward for and included in the flight ticket! The cutlery was nice and elegant and the food was good! Though I kept the aloo paratha aside for lunch! I may also be the one who read the in flight magazine page to page seriously! The only courage I showed as a first timer was when I asked the air hostess if I could take it and to my delight she said yes! I still have that in some dusty box in my house! Of course there was no one to hold hands or comfort you when you are young! Only the very young and the very old get that! The rest have to manage on their own! Of course by the time I was in the flight number two, ّI was already ‘experienced’! So I acted as if I flew everyday!
Actual experience is when you do a thing constantly and consistently! Like being the birthday celebrity who was the chief minister for more than 23 years which was a record!
Now fly into the flights of fantasy in dream land and sleep!
Shush ratri!
ramadocblog 