Julius Machado recounts his encounters of the airborne kind
REMEMBER THE time when the mere mention of long distance travel used to send jitters down people’s spines? Travel then, often meant long uncomfortable journeys on the railways, rickety public transport buses, encounters with fleecing auto and taxi drivers, and seedy hotels. That was an era when travel was made only as a necessity- like the annual journey to one’s hometown on vacation, the odd religious pilgrimage, or attending the call for a job interview. Now people travel because they want to. And although they do not “air dash” in the manner of a minister rushing to a flood hit area, they certainly fly to their destination, courtesy the airline boom coupled with low cost fares and high disposable middle class income. Air travel, once the preserve of the rich, has become a progressively preferred mode of transport for everyone from the well-heeled executive to your neighbourhood paanwalla.
My own experience of air travel had been quite pleasant till the invasion of air space by the hoi polloi took away the exclusivity of it all. I was at the Port Blair airport some years ago. A motley gathering swamped the airport early in the morning – that is the time when all four to five daily flights arrive and depart – and made it a merry marketplace. They were all there – local Andamanese on way to the mainland, wide eyed rural women clutching assorted pieces of tin pot luggage with their fascinated kids, the LTC lot, amused foreigners, the regulars, and of course me and my family, a bit boxed in by the chaotic milieu.
My wife, who even in the normal course, approaches toilets in public places with the hesitation of someone who was about to enter a Nazi gas chamber, was livid, swearing and fuming (collectively a monumental mental exercise if it can be called one) as she emerged from the ladies’ washroom at the airport. It seems those who had earlier used the loo had presumed that the commode was an improvised shelf to keep their belongings on, while they merrily relieved themselves on the floor. The washroom attendant who took the full blast of her disgruntlement was apologetic; the airport official pleaded that it was impossible to accompany everyone inside and teach them toilet manners. If that had placated her for that moment, the refusal by the cabin crew inside the aircraft to allow her inside the aircraft toilet due to turbulence (The crew did have a point there – the aircraft was swaying like a State Transport bus on the potholed Shillong Guwahati highway) added to her woes and created more turbulence. Like all good husbands, I bore the brunt of both – turbulent aircraft and virulent wife.
The advent of the rural crowd, though, has its entertaining moments. While on a flight from Ahmedabad to Delhi, I did notice with amusement the presence of a whole family of traditionally clad Rajasthani women, demure damsels and their aunts and mothers who showed the excitement of having come to a rural fair rather than on a mode of travel. And excited they were, as they all gave a collective shriek when the plane banked steeply when on its ascent, making me believe for a moment that I was sitting aboard a Ferris wheel rather than an aircraft. At another time, at Mumbai airport, an elderly woman travelling alone and probably for the first time asked me with genuine anxiety whether the bag she had handed over as check in baggage will be given to her at Chennai where she was headed. I assured her that it would. But after the news some years ago that even Amitabh Bachchan’s baggage had been misplaced more than once by someone as traditionally dependent as the British Airways, I wouldn’t have sounded convincing enough.
Unpleasant experience with co passengers is rare but it did happen to me once on a Goa-Mumbai flight. It so happened that when food was served, the gentleman in the seat ahead of me did not make his seat upright as is the norm. I pointed this out to the flight stewardess, who in turn prodded the man (no longer deserving the prefix-gentle) to do the needful. To my amazement, the guy refused to comply. For me, being a six footer compressed into an airline seat was bad enough, this guy’s fully reclined seat brought the food tray up to my neck, and the only way I could have savoured its contents was canine style. Once again I beckoned the cabin crew and she courteously pointed out to him my neck-and-canine predicament, but to no avail. Then I decided to take matters in my hands, notwithstanding the protestations of my wife, who was sensing a mid air brawl. I leaned forward and asked the boor point blank, whether this was the first time he was travelling by air? That remark indeed caught his goat, his ego severely dented, and he indignantly enquired of the stewardess whether I thought I was born in an aircraft. What mattered was that his seat became upright and I could concentrate on the job in hand, that was to partake of the modest culinary spread on my tray. My upset better half let go the better half of her own food tray, having lost her appetite.
In-flight service may be one of the USPs bandied about by airlines in their sales talk, but recent cost cutting measures have seen trimming down of crew size inside aircraft, and fewer flight attendants are serving more customers, making it a harried job for them. Passengers’ service expectations however remain high, but true to my style, I always try to sneak in a witty remark to those comely but hardworking ladies sashaying down the aisle. Once, on a Mumbai-Rajkot flight I found the two young girls doing a great job whether it was the clarity and diction of announcements or serving of food trays. When one of them came to collect the feedback form she had randomly distributed, I told her that I had written a glowing account of her and her colleague. Elated, she remarked, “Oh, that means I have chosen the right person”, to which I smilingly remarked that she had been quite some 15 years late in making her choice.
Momentarily taken aback, but then catching the humour, she, betraying a small blush, sportingly accepted both, my remark as well as the form while my male colleague, sitting next to me looked embarrassingly stunned. Ah, and did I forget to mention that on this occasion, my wife was not with me? That’s precisely why I still live to tell the story. So go ahead. Happy flying!