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. 

Tycho Brahe [sic] and Rupture [not sic]

Have posted on my wall today, actually a few hours ago - 
''I don't , really really I don't .... I don't want to be like Tycho Brahe ...< SIGH > '' [sic]

A friend asked - '' how come suddenly him? '' [sic]
 
I blurted - '' Brahe... for too many reasons.... too many!!! I don't want to die like him, I mean - the way he did. I don't want another Copernicus to usurp my under appreciated work, if there any , after I die... see it's all too bleak, not even half the fun like a kid screaming - die die die!!! while playing video games. And above all I don't wanna do away with any nose job , simply I prefer to flee than going for a duel, I guess... now do respond back to this or people will start to think I am talking to myself :D '' [sic]

My friend flustered, and retorted back - and how he died? I don't remember exactly... [not sic]

And me - ummm....you see, he had to hold his pee for too many long hours in order to not to offend the King's banquet he was attending and died tragically with the Ruptured bladder about five days later.... see, not a good way to die! Even if our so called the prophetic Rupture of 21st May happen or not... 
[ not sic again, cause he is yet to ask me that and I am yet to deliver this speech farther ] :D

So go to sleep in broken hearts people, Rupture ain't happening today!

Only some another friend said - "finally... I am out of the woods, and out of the "boulevard of broken dreams"!!"  [sic]

I told her, - "That's good, seems I am lost into the labyrinth of mine, only each and every time I feel I have seen a light at the end of the tunnel... some harp tune takes me back to the square one.... as if I am defaulted to the recycle mode."  [sic sic sic... pretty sick!]

She - "hmm., but this sounds like "we shall overcome"!!!!!!! LOL!! :D" [sic]

I, out of my perpetual awesomeness - "aha! favourite caller tune of life!" [sic]

And they postponed the Rupture, again!

The car broke down, we did push push...

Today’s morning was as usual, mundane. Waking up early, getting ready. Gobbling few bites with a quick slurp of tea. Zooming to the car, BAM! Slamming the door, and zapping through the morning traffic. While driving, a middle aged man was moronically crossing the road, without giving a look what was coming in his way. I with my moral obligation gave him a stern flying comment : "don’t you have any brakes on your feet?" He stared hard and so did I with more intensity. Then blabbering to myself, this morons are polluting the class of jay walkers. They lack the basic acrobatic skills. Few more morons I faced during rest of my drive. I was punctual as usual but only got it by whisker, as usual. I passed the key to our home caretaker and told him to drive the car back home safely. This is the picture, in a regular entrainment happens over and over in my life , like all other things that happen daily.

About almost two hours later, mother called. Tensed. She told me the car hadn't  arrived back. So many possibilities passed my mind, in a flash. Zoom! Each of them was worst than previous.Possibilities are astronomically enormous. Ranging from bone tickling funny to sordid gruesome.Good, it happened in salt lake. If the stage was to be set on the vastness of main city kolkata…rest you can imagine! I hung up, telling her not to worry, because I am here to make things all right.

Easier it was said than done. I was clueless. I fumbled to the girl I was talking to, made vague excuses and zapped out from there. On the street, a fear of uncertainty grappled within me. Told you, possibilities are enormous. I rushed to the rickshaw stand. Hailed the standing one in queue and told him precisely what I’m going to look for in the by rodes of salt lake, within the possibilities of trajectories from that place to the way back home. And the search begun. I asked the rickshaw-wala if any road accident happened. Answer was negative but at the same time load inside me was getting heavy.

Tension dissolved. Ma called me back telling me the exact location of the place where the car had broken down. Achinto da has lost his mobile few moths back. And this lost baggage has given him a big relief by providing an excuse of not being available to the people he works for. So while he pushed the car to a more safer place with most tactile maneuver possible, we were being frenzied. Anyway, all’s well that goes well. I got there ASAP.

Immense , yes that’s the word. Immense relief prevailed when I got a glance of my car. I called dad over phone . He was as usual cool and a pillar support whenever things go wrong with me. And better he restrained himself from bragging me about the car he drives himself, always reminding me how good are this new cars with all those features. As if with all new things he gets, the old becomes someone elses! But fact is , I am touchy about my good old car. I love it. I have so many memories with it, and with all of it’s predecessors. Don’t find it funny, I treat cars of any make with reverence. It’s a fetish I nurture. Like my fetishes with shoes, watches, and bags !

The mechanic asked me if we can somehow manage to move at home with the car, as he can’t come right now. With all the symptoms at hand, dad told me: might be like last time it’s the distributor system’s problem. So we have to drive it in a steady way. When it stops, where ever it stops, we have to wait to allow the engine to become cool and then have to move ahead. Daunting. We started. The car got stopped at some crossing next time. It was an ideal hit by bus and run for your life place. Both me and Achinto da had to get out of the car to give it a push. Achinto da steered and pushed from the front while I was pushing from the back. It was a treat for the passerby! To see a well dressed girl to push a car, not everyone sees on their way. But they only laughed. I giggled back.

Getting into the safe alley nearer home. I took a break and took a snap of Achinto pushing the car. Wish someone could be there to take my snap of pushing and getting reduced to perspiration. It’d have provided me a helluva of inspiration later on. So the credo was push, push and push. I kept thinking if it’s a toy car, I could have pulled it. Mechanically more apt. Crazy thoughts. Never go away. This way and that way, finally we reached home. And the world got saved.

P.S : The car came back from the garage. She is okay. Only was a minor problem. She’s gonna stay with me for better and for the best. I am happy with a smile on my face.


here is an addendum with the photo :
an unmistakable fact came upon me while I was seeing the photo later on : Next time I should be more appreciative towards the sartorial senses of Achinto da. His lethal combo of green tee and orange bermuda was quite an apt attire for pushing the car on street, while mine was quite a blunder, brown tee with jeans and pushing a brown car while buses kept coming with great roars from behind on the prime office time. Vulnerable. According to my cousin, Achinto da is more like the version of Bilbo Baggins, more than what meets the eye!