Friday, August 22, 2008

The Sky High View I

This post has been long over due. I would as usual escape by blaming laziness to be the cause for it all. Plus the fact that there was no net at my disposal. So here is my so called experience which I managed to key in to my trusted cell phone sitting way up above at an altitutde of 30k plus feet.



Emotions never goes down so well with guys. I guess it is an un-written law of nature that checks the deep emotions in guys. Or was it just a conscious effort from my side to keep a check on mine. I really am not sure what the reason was but during the course of my last day in India ( atleast for the time being ) there was not much shedding of tears. I will admit though that there was the expected few drops of waterfall, but it was broken down into several stages. The moistening of the eyes and the sudden outbursts on a couple of occasions. Finally it was time to say goodbye. I somehow did manage to keep a chec on my emotions while I was engulfed into the BIAL terminal. It was a strange kind of sensation when I boarded the jumbo jet outbound for London. The excitement, the tension and the unfathomable emotions from the previous days morning finally got to me and lo behold I was fast asleep even before we left terra firma.

It is said that before we die then our entire life seems to flash past across our eyes. Well thats certainly one thing that nobody would claim to have experienced. When I did wake up ( which was just about an hour later ) I seemed to have a very similar feeling. As we climbed to dizzying heights I was leaving behind one phase of my life and entering a new phase. This was the time when my mind was in rewind mode. But as during the screening of the movies on tv ( when a very interesting situation is interrupted by an irritating commercial ) I was interrupted with food and beverages from the flight attendants. Being in the middle seat I was sitting sandwiched between an elderly lady and a guy sitting on the aisle seat who refused to shift. So basically even though I was travelling with my senior I was pretty much travelling alone at the moment. Talking about senior, I must say that I was extremely lucky to have gotten myself tickets on the same plane as her. She had a strange kind of calming effect on me. Just her mere presence was enough to assure me that things would be a cake walk and nothing would go wrong. Well almost a cake walk!

The flight would have been really eventless had it not been for yet another VTU victim sitting next to me. He did manage to spill orange juice all over me during the flight and i do not know how her managed to do it though. The balding attendent had quite a laugh when i kept asking for tissues to clean up. I know anybody who looks at a guy with orange juice dripping from his pants might laugh his heart out, but please give me a break man. It was not my fault in the first place that I had the stupid juice all over my seat and plates.

British Airways does have a decent in flight entertainment system. Its a different story that I had seen most of the movies that they had provided. I still did manage to watch a dumb comedy starring Arshad Warsi and Suniel Shetty. The elderly lady sitting next to me was pretty sweet. She even told me that orange juice will not leave behind a tell tale stain as I had washed it immediately. So basically my flight till London was characterized by conversations with this sweet lady and the poor VTU victim who had a strange habit of providing facts of the day everytime he seemed to remember one.

Once you are on board for a really long international flight you just seem to have loads of time to yourself. The same goes gor me as well. I had time to reflect upon the previous days events. I realised how little time I had spent with my parents on the day of my departure. In fact I was not able to spend quality time with anybody to be frank. I did not know what is there in each of the bag that I was carrying. The entire packing was done by my mum. I was pretty much spoon fed that day. Mum and dad doing the packing and some of my friends also pitching in with what they could. Amidst all these thoughts I guess I did manage to catch a few more minutes of sleep.

On our way to London we flew over Afghanistan. Despite the terror label that it has, it did have a good landscape. Or maybe everything looks small and pretty from an altitude of 35,ooo feet. I did have a strange kind of happiness when we passed over the Caspian sea. After marking the water body a hundred times on the maps I was really happy to see it from atleast this high. The descent to Heathrow International airport was really a sight to behold. London is really beautiful from the heavens. With the Thames cutting its way across the city and the ocean surrounding the entire landmass. The formation of clouds all along was simply one of the most picturesque sight that one can get to see. I also managed to get a glimpse of Arsenal's home pitch ( well thats what the walking talking wikipedia sitting next to me told me. I am not much of a football follower anyways ). Anyways whichever the stadium was, it was truly amazing. Words are not enough to describe the beauty of the sight. Finally the long journey was over when the plane taxied into terminal 5 of the Heathrow airport.

3 comments:

Rag said...

haheheh!!! orange juice!!! ur full pant must've been sticky sticky na????

Karthik[:)] said...

@raghav

yeah man...but somehow i managed to get it off...talk about being sweetly welcomed.....hehehe

Pooja said...

orange juice all over you...????!!!..hhhehhhe...funny!!!!..n poor you..not evn yr fault ;)...oh n the walkie-talkie wikipedia eh.?..quite an eventful journey i must say [:chuckle:]...
n omg!!!!...does england look so good frm tat height?..

n the prev day's events unfolding in yr mind..happens, boy...it sure is a big step/turn..in the events of the journey called life ...;)..

good one :)...