in-flight entertainment

This is what I look mostly like when I'm up in the air... drowsy! :-/

Frankly, I don't have much higher opinion about the in-flight entertainment offered by our domestic airlines. A year back, I flew with Kingfisher airlines and through out the journey I tried, literally, to watch Amitabh Bachhan's "Paa" - it was a pathetic experience, not the film but the console system of the airline. It was measly if quality counts. But...hey! so that goes for the airline foods! :D  Mostly after that I have traveled by far on IndiGo, and here they don't offer any such things but every time the flight goes up and starts to glide no matter how chaffed I was about a few hours ago during check in, my belly starts to growl. Inevitably I feel hungry up there. And all the time I end up buying a chicken-sandwich for myself. Which is quite good in IndiGo but nothing like good o'l days of  IA and when Jet was the only private airline [ along with Sahara] and all of them used to give 'food' free, no matter how bad they can be [ IA once served samosa and pantua on board !! thankfully that was my last flight on IA and I was a class 12 kid on my way back home, all alone, during my school's summer recess.]  

Once during pujo , some flood happened and all railroads were blocked connecting north and south of Bengal and we have to go back home by air, and it was the only time I had my share of experience in travelling by business class [ you are right, that doesn't happen all the time and for me never happened thereafter.] It was Jet Premier... man! oh! man! for a kid , it was the best thing could ever come true during pujo. Of course! I was "hayngla" and still shamelessly very much I am. Right from having the privileges of lounging with the air hostesses in the special lounge area after check-in to having the tryst with the first bite into the thin-crusty-club-sandwich... total upper crust! [ yes, I have been to Flury's only for a couple of times and so anything culinary and gourmet is always alien to me and mind it, 'am very much "hayngla" ! :) ]. And to top that, getting a pair of cold and hot hand-towels while on board and once again being served gourmet food with chocolate pudding as a dessert. For a flight of one hour, I actually kept hanging in trance! Alas! gone are those days....then Deccan came and changed everything :( . Now they don't even give free candies on board in budget airlines and economy classes [providing the scientific facts that they come much handy while taking off and touching down to clear the blocked ears]. Nobody gives a damn!


Today while returning from Varanasi after visiting Sarnath, I watched a documentary [ BBC's Human Planet ] . Watching documentary is actually quite a good thing to do on board. I don't have to resort to a headphone, without sound, just following the flow of the story is fine for me, it's impaired but works just fine. It kept my mind engaged, as I tend to get freaked out while the plane takes off. I just start to feel a giga gravitational under-belly pull during the take off and always it scares the shit out me. I know, it sounds ridiculous but I can't help it. On the contrary I don't feel any fear while the craft lands, funny eh!! This time, it was my return flight. While going there, three days ago from Kolkata, there was heavy rain all day long. Even while boarding the whole runway at Kolkata airport was fogged by heavy rain. The visibility was abysmally reduced. While we were waiting for our delayed flight, just before boarding Jet kept us waiting at the ground for about 20 minutes. All of those passengers were waiting in a queue and heavy rain was pouring in, needlessly to say I already started to feel sick and for the rest of the journey I felt groggy, sick and tired. But this time I was fine. Of course I silently freaked out during take off! :D

This is a part of the documentary I saw during my - up in the air! It's nice.