Air Attack

These days, I've been flying quite frequently, cattle class (literally) as usual and much less proud to be part of the "herd". Flying in India, unlike in olden times, isn't a luxury anymore. I guess this is what Americans seem to be complaining all the time about. Back in the days, I used to think they were just not appreciative of flying because it was way too mundane for them and their expectations of quality was higher than the average Indian’s. But now I empathize with them; gone are the smiles on the faces of the crew, those greetings (that at least seemed fairly genuine), even plane food has become appalling; which I used to look forward to, given plane fares were never cheap and somehow delicious and neatly packed plane food (incl. in the flight fare) made the experience of flying more justified than just reaching one's destination quickly. Plane food is now just a lot of outrageously priced snacks. 

Last night when I was flying, my co-passenger, after scrutinizing the flight menu for a while, decided to pick something to eat. He was obviously taking his time to carefully weigh all the options so as to pick the most appropriately priced item on the menu. He enquired with the crew, pointing his finger at the pack of nuts priced at Rs. 40 (Ha, quite impressed with himself)!

This was met with a rather difficult smile and a curt reply, "Sorry sir, we haven’t got that. Maybe you'd like samosas instead". Now, to me it seemed a bad proposition to a person who wanted a small pack of nuts. All the more inappropriate since these samosas cost Rs. 100 ( whereas elsewhere 20 bucks would have sufficed for the same). So I expected this guy to dismiss this offer with a shrug muttering “Bah, nothing then”, but to my surprise his only query to that suggestion was a mere "I'll have it only if its served hot";I thought to myself, “Seriously, that's what was stopping you from ordering it in the first place ??” I could see the smug look on the face of the crew for he had successfully upsold to the poor bastard! What a loser, I thought. "And you Sir?", the crew member asked, turning to me. "No, thanks I'm all right", I replied. He didn't seem very pleased with me. 

Few mins later the air-hostess dropped off a box of samosas on my co-passenger’s food tray. Mmm..those samosas smelt good..I thought he might after all have bagged a decent deal ! I decided not to look that side (even through the corner of my eye), of course to alleviate myself of all the drooling. My co-passenger seemed to be enjoying his snack quite well and I happily went back to listening to my music. He seemed to shift around in his place making himself all the more jolly as he gobbled away. It seemed as though he was making sure the samosas did reach where his hunger pangs originated ! A little later, emerged the unspeakable -  the obnoxious cloud of fart. It was so discreet that it caught me off guard, left me defenceless and gasping for air !! I managed to look up to see if the crew was enjoying their little practical joke, for all this suddenly seemed to me like their grand plan. Though I couldn’t see anyone, I shuddered at the thought of what my plane food had become after all - a secret bio-weapon to disorient unsuspecting passengers and leave them helpless !! Next time around, I'm going in dressed as Darth Vader !

Bon voyage o.O

Nutty High !!

Ah..finally..it seemed like an eternity waiting for the "Draft" section to load.. you see I sometimes get these spurts of thoughts, which I wanna pen (err..blog) right-away, before I get carried away by some other random thing.

One of those moments, I guess, fingers itching to type (I thought that's something I would never say, when I put it that way) the rumblings in my head. Man, my head is throbbing after those peanuts I gobbled up; certainly couldn't let them get past that way, without the joy of chewing them thoroughly; but hell, that cost me ! My temples..ah, now I know where they are..damn. The things that you end up doing, when you walk in, no almost staggering (from hunger), grab the first thing you can find to abate those pangs. I did that exactly, you see. Found a packet of peanuts stashed away in the cupboard, ripped it open into a container and started to munch them all too quickly. Half a minute into it, before I realized my jaws ain't equipped at handling / working at the speed of an ICE. Ouch ! So I settled down to read my FB messages. We have group chats going on everywhere these days - it's like you start in one place (whatsapp) and then continue elsewhere - like facebook ! I know it get's difficult to keep track, if that's what you are thinking..but well, it doesn't matter really..ours is a fairly close-knit group of buddies from college you see, and we just talk about random things, some from the past, others stemming from jokes in the past or the likes. That's when I had this urge to capture the flow of thoughts in my head..it was as though I had to let them out at the same pace it was getting generated, unadulterated (though that's not so true, is it?, obviously I couldn't afford typos). Ok, now the question arises, as my head starts to clear up from the thick clouds of smoke generated by munching peanuts, when do I stop this non-sense. Right about now, I guess !!

Peace,

\m/ your's truly \m/

Holy Cow !

Back when I was an NRI (I hate that term; maybe I’ll come up with a more appropriate one soon), on the rare occasions when I came across something remotely ‘racist’, like for instance an American TV show featuring somebody on the road stopping to worship the holy cow et al, I used to think we Indians, like a lot other people from different cultures, are probably the most stereotyped for things that in the modern age even in India might be considered quite ridiculous. Perhaps it used to occur more frequently few decades back, but in New Age India, boy, you don’t wanna know that even first world countries will be put to shame when it comes to westernization and technology.

But well let me confess, I was wrong. Ha! But the latter part of my assurance that India is still at the forefront of technology holds true though. When I landed in Pune a year back, driving around cows (holy and the others) became a routine event on my way to and from work. And strangely enough, people who look too busy to even let a bunch of school kids cross the road, stop to worship the cow – this time the Holy one! Amusing, I found it in the beginning and some part of me sought apology from the random American director whom I had cursed earlier for being ‘racist’. But then again the cows in turn, I’m not sure whether they really know they are being treated godly or not, sure started taking all this worshipping quite seriously I assume. For, these days, they just decide to sit right in the middle of the road! And quite unperturbed people continue to ply around them.

Peace,

$ur