A good twenty minutes had
gone by since I had taken a point close to the glass wall of the airport
for observing the planes. I found them special always, no matter how many
times I kept seeing them across many years. And that was from the fact that
what I have achieved as an engineer was just nothing compared to this invention
of two individuals from a world far lesser developed than what it is today.
My flight to SeaTac was delayed by six hours due to technical issues and I was
successfully keeping myself engaged while killing my time at the O'Hare
Airport. And by the time the boarding call came in, another hour had slipped
by. And in these seven hours, I had called a few cousins in the USA, read a
portion of a book, and spent the rest gaping in frustration at the airport areas
all around me.
I got into the boarding line
and was slowly inching towards the desk. “Je suis…..”, said the lady who was in
front of me in the line, into a man’s ear as the rest went in as a whisper. She
did that whisper in French again and again and giggled. They were a bubbly young
man and woman laughing and giggling most of the time and I think even another ten
hours of waiting wouldn’t have dampened their spirits. Standing behind me was
a dapper man in his mid-forties, cool in his beige blazer and reading the
Anandha Vikitan magazine. It was a comforting Indian presence. And the person
just behind him, possibly an American, was flipping through the Forbes magazine.
An old couple, possibly in their late sixties, took time to do some walking up
and down in parallel to the line, while their son and his wife stood in the
queue trying to manage their naughty little son who was getting impatient with
the waiting.
I wished that the line
moved faster, as right above me, hung the huge metal artwork suspended from the
airport rooftop. The very thought of it falling sent shivers down my spine.
Outside the glass wall, the airport ground support staff in their fluorescent green high-vis
vests, streaked up and down in their vehicles, busy doing their stuff with
every aircraft that came down and went up. A young couple, who probably had
more waiting time, were lazily hanging around the different shops and gazing at
the airport interiors while airport security staff were doing hurried walks, up
and down with their walkie talkies. A classic mix of human reactions. At the
boarding desk, the flight attendants with their beautifully
carved smiles and perfect set of teeth, were doing a great job in convincing some passengers that they would have
to check-in their oversized cabin bags.
In about fifteen to twenty
minutes, I was inside the aircraft, settled comfortably in an aisle seat. The naughty
little boy, whom I had seen in the boarding queue earlier, was just two seats away in front. He was already busy rolling his eyes at me
through the gap in between the seats. I waved back with a quickly fading smile
as the frustration within me of having waited so long, had still not subsided. My journey had started
with an eight-hour halt at Mumbai. Although that was something I knew much
earlier, this delay of another eight hours was too much to take. While my mind
was deep into the frustration due to the delays along the journey, I lost track of
the passengers who started filling up into the seats around me. “Would you mind
keeping your leg inside Sir. We would be using this aisle frequently”, chipped
in a beautiful air hostess with a warm smile. That jolted me from my deep thought,
and I was back into the present. “Sure”, I said and kept my left leg inside. "Thank you", she responded and moved ahead.
In about fifteen minutes
we hit the skies. After a while, I heard
the crackle of the inflight announcement, ”Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,
this is your captain……”. I was not sure what the announcement was about. I felt
two very small sudden drops that the aircraft went through in a fraction of a
second. It occurred to me that it was weird but since we were back again, flying
normally, it did not matter. And then there came two huge sudden drops, one after the
other, and each of these shook me out of my wits. I saw a bunch of passengers around
me, clap in joy once the aircraft settled post the drops. I spotted the naughty
boy peep through the gap between the seats. He had dark goggles on, and he put
out his tongue in an act of teasing me. I thought that the whole happy and relaxed
bunch, had already been through such similar experiences earlier. But I was still in
a state of shock. I realized then, that the pilot’s announcement had been for
passengers to remain seated with seat belts fastened as the aircraft was experiencing
turbulence.
We were again cruising smoothly
and flight attendants started to move up and down the aisle. I saw the food
trolley making its way slowly towards my seat. I was more relaxed now. “You prefer
some coffee or tea Sir”, asked a beautiful air hostess. “Coffee is not my cup
of tea”, was my immediate answer. It was more of a spontaneous frustrated reaction driven
by what I had gone through moments earlier, than an answer to her question. But I had mixed it up as dry humour. The hostess went
into a loud laughter and offered me a cup of tea, still giggling and laughing. I
gave her a nice controlled wide smile and that made her laugh even more. The passengers around went into a laughter too.
We had another twenty
minutes more of flying time, and whenever she went past my seat, she dropped a
few Snickers bars on my lap and shared a warm smile and a few giggles. If only she
knew that I had been stunned out of my wits due to the turbulence drop, she
would have laughed out much more.
In the flight journeys that came by after this happening, I took aircraft turbulence into my stride with nonchalance. The only difference was that I was not overt in my expression by clapping and laughing when it happened. That's probably the next level that I can try and reach😁.
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