This is the first time i am boarding a plane, though been to airport once before but never boarded a plane. Normally i think i should be excited but nothing like that as i had to come to banglore from Kozhikode for my flight by a bus. The bus started from the campus at 7:00pm on 28th of march 2008 and reached somewhere near to Bangalore by 6:00pm. My flight was scheduled to depart at 7:30 am in the morning. The bus was full of my batchmates and they were making teasing me that i will miss the flight. Somewhere inside i was not worried about it, why i don’t know but i wasn’t though i was trying to look anxious for the forecasted delay. By 6:00am we were near to the air port but it was just a rough guess, some other people were telling that its still far. Then finally with a lot more cry one of us went to the driver and told him that we wanna reach airport by 7:00am. Too much rush was expected but wasn’t on the streets of banglore may be because today is a Saturday. The driver just stopped infront of the air port gate but there was no way for the bus to move in, therefore we took a U turn after moving a little, while turning there was another gate but we didn’t paid attention and rushed to the previous one, when we reached there some one read that it is for arrival not for departure again a problem, i had to reach the air-port by 7:00 to take my boarding pass but its already 6:50 and what to do, some people gave option to take an auto to reach the airport but mean while the bus driver started taking back, and with in 5 min we reached the correct gate. I took my luggage and with me was Ravi so we went straight to the airport. There i saw ramya and sumanth two of my bathcmates actually love birds on a bench, but i was till now a little anxious about the flight. I took a trolley that was parked, we lodded our language and moved to the main entrance. I think ravi also didn’t knew much or may be not familiar with banglore airport. The very first i saw a queue for moving in, queue is like a religion in india for every thing you can find people in queue, either it be going to temple for worship, or going to school, waiting for a bus or auto, going for dinner in a mess or a wedding, even one can find queues for going to toilet. In such a situation we people are becoming experts to deal with queue, thus as an expert inidan does we take a little left turn and straight moved ahead of the queue to the main entrance, but there was a security check, a cop and Indian cops are too intelligent, he told us be in queue so what he told we waited for a second and then moved inside the queue from that position only, he nodded his head and smiled and send us in. Then it was the first time to enter into an airport as a passenger and that to i was in such a condition that i was not sure wether i will reach or not. The picture inside was entirely different from my imagination, rather than an airport it seemed to me like a shopping moll. Too many people again and so many counter with several employees of different airways to take their respective “customers”.
Yes that what a human being is now, a “customer”, with so much research in the filed of management and so many higher level training and educational institute all us are trying to make others a customers and in turn becoming a customer. A customer, a mobile number or a credit card number or any such number that’s it. Any way the very next seen i saw was again a huge queue for booking of luggage, i didn’t know what to do we moved into the queue. I had heard from my friends that there is something like boarding pass and one needs to get that in order to board a flight, so i was more concerned about the boarding pass rather than the luggage. Again a huge que and time was running out of our hands, then what can an ordinary Indian do “GUGAR” a purely home made Indian solution for any kind of problem. With grace of good we got our GUGAR, akash goel one of our batch mates taking the same flight and was ahead of us in the que, problem solved!! We are with akash and the luggage is booked. After that i got a card like thing, from the counter, a 2 inch wide and 4 inch long white peice of paper, ohh god its the boarding pass about which all were talking about, now i had it in my hand and the lost confidnace came again that now definitely i will board this flight. The whole air-port seemed to me like people fill with kind heat eady to help. Such a funny scene was all over, if your luggage has not gone into security check directly give to them if you are getting late for your flight. Wao!!! Next hurdle was the final security check, almost a formality i think as thought the laptop bag has gone into the machine i think the x-ray but not sure, the police man took a security check of me and now we are in, onto the way to our waiting flight. I was now a little exicted to see a flight. While walking to the flight i saw some aeroplanes, felt a little nice but was thinking of something in my mind. I thought about RAM singh my friend who used to call aeroplane as cheel gade (eagle ) similar to rail gade. I was thinking to giving him a call and tell him that see today i am going to fly in a cheel gade. With all this i moved into the plane by walking into a sidewalk directly linked to the main gate of the plane. But the very first scene was not wao!!! But how ..........so many people again. It seemed that i had come to a state transport bus. There were attended to direct you but i am generally not comfortable with such unusual things, though i pose to the world that i am too extrovert and bold but i know from inside of heart that how shy i am and how many times i think before doing anything. How many times i think before asking for something, even to a batchmate. Anyway the first flight of my life S232 jetlight, banglore to delhi was going to take at 7:30 and luckly i am in. I went to my seat though i didn’t knew how to find out but ravi and akash started taking about their so i also took out my wild card the boarding pass and found that it is 12 B a middle berth between two middle aged man i think both were more that fourty. What a seen it was so much temperature inside and i think AC was not working. After few seconds there was an announcement from the cabin(i think ) and instructions were given how to tighten the seat belt, the instructions were in hindi, English and mallu, and with the instructions one of the flight steward was performing the actions to tighten and open the seat belt etc. The final instructions and the flight steward came to check and told me to keep my laptop bag in the cabin above seats. With all this the flight started and excitement with it, it was the same feeling and experience as in a marri-go-round. I thought that if i would have loved that i would also perhaps liked this flight takeover. With in few minutes the flight was on run was and taking speed, i was feeling a little pressure in my stomach but some how i managed, and the speed of the aircraft increased, and with a high sound it finally takeoff. Wao !! what a scene was from the window, first it was like i am watching a master plan of a city and later was like watching google earth. Roads were like wires and cities like some stones scattered here n there.
