Why I hate Flying…..

 
“Its ok dear…. We’ll keep in touch… I promise, plz dun cry hun…. I totally understand… u push off… I ll ring u when I reach India…. Love u… “ (click)

I hang up the fone and turn to find my mum standing right behind me giving me the look which says YOUR TOO YOUNG TO HAVE a GIRLFRIEND!!!! As it is I was dealing with a million problems right now as to how to deal with my first departing phase with gal… college… ragging…. Living alone…. FOOD!!!! I laid back on my easy chair wondering as to what's in store for me next in the years to come…

Considering the fact that I was a 17 yr old teenager who had just given just given his class XII exams, these things were like an Everest of problems I was facing and departing with my girlfriend was like the cherry on top of a black forest cake. Neetha (my then girlfriend) and I had decided that we were meant to be together for a lifetime….We were the ideal laila-majnu, romeo juliet etc etc…. the usual love story thingy!!! Then again which school teenage love story couple didn’t think so! The love was so blind and mesmerizing that we even decided to catch the same flight back to India together…..APRIL 12^th I remember…..

Flash back: APRIL 3rd, 2001

Neetha: “that’s a great idea…. Dad has booked my tickets for the 12th!!”

Vishnu: “tell u what I’ll get my dad to book the tickets on the same day and we’ll go together!”

Neetha: '”kool!!! I love u so much….”

Vishnu: “I love u too dear! “

APRIL 10th, 2001

Seems her dad managed to get tickets preponed, so that she can leave to India 2 days earlier in order for her to attend the entrance for some Osmania university in some jackass part of Karnataka, in vetinary medicine so that she can spend the rest of her sorry life fingering sum cows ass!!!!

So the usual story ….gal is sad says a million sorry, dumb in love boyfriend says its ok blah …blah consoles her and catches the next flight home!

48 HOURS LATER……

“Make sure u call us wen u reach home…. Don’t take bath in cold water…. Open a bank account wen u reach there… we willl send u the money”

And dads favourite line at the airport “TAKE CARE OF UR PASSPORT!” Throughout my 17 years of flying, this was for the first time I was actually holding my passport. Strangely but ironically I hadn't even the slightest idea how I looked like in my own passport photo. My dad like all gulf expates, had this uncontrollable obsession towards our passports. He guarded the passports as if he was that doode from the lord of the rings who kept that ring from Frogo.

The very sight of my face in the passport freaked me….i looked like Atal Bihari Vajpayee about 2 secs before he was about to have a premature ejaculation…. No wonder those customs people always frisked me!!!

The funny thing bout travelling alone for the first time is that you are all excited about travelling with no restrictions…. No sit here’s, Do that’s, Don’t take anything from anyone. You actually get to do all that grown up stuff you always wanted to do throughout your life! But the reality is that when you finally get there, you get that suffocating grip in your heart and your throat goes all dry by seeing yourself walking away from your folks who have been eating your brains out for the past nearly two decades.

But alike any other teenager I wasn't any different…. That feeling lasted only till I reached the Grande DUTY FREE!!!! The words FREEDOM screamed through my head over over again. My dad’s hard earned money was in my pocket and a care free and retarded brain waiting to spend it all. My wait to the plane was nearly over an hour….most of the time I just spend it window shopping, buying candy (how so uncool!!) and yes!! gawking at the hot sales girls. God bless skin waxing. Their legs were so freaking shiny that they could actually woo me with their toes. Okay!! maybe I had a feet fetish then. However, I no longer regretted the fact that I wasn't travelling with my girlfriend. After my duty free fantasy was over, I figured out that it was time to get in the plane. Little did I know that this was prolly gonna be the last time I would enjoy being in an airport!!

“THE EXITS FROM THE PLANE ARE FROM HERE , HERE AND HERE….” Said the ravishing air hostess pointing at the exits and showing us how to inflate the life jackets. Everyone especially all those horny middle aged men waiting to go home and pound their wives paid attention to every detail of the airhostess. I sat there staring out of the window, I always found these inflight safety plans rather silly and useless. In fact there was no use of it at all, I mean what good is it gonna be if we were to explode in mid air or if we crash into the bottom of the sea or something. Who would even have time to even deploy these things, Everything would be over in a matter of few seconds. So, I patiently wait for my co passenger secretly hoping and praying that it would be a really hot gal who would be my companion for the next 4hrs. As always the lucky one happens to turn out to be some really boring old guy with an obsession for his passport!!! As he settled down, he carefully tugged away his huge duty free bags filled with scotch and chocolates in the overhead cabinet. This was evident coz we malayalees go to the Duty Free just for 2 things…. Scotch and chocolates,….. there’ll prolly be a bottle of Chivas or Johnnie walker and sum cheap whiskey ( to bribe the customs) in one bag and tons of chocolate to feed the relative kids!!! As for the chocolates, there would be two categories…. All the good caramel filled chocolates for his children and cheap Tiffany and Korean wafer chocolates for near relatives.

However flight takes off as scheduled and I look outside the window as I see what was my home for the past 17 years just fading away. An hour into the journey I can see its and bits of the sea…. I realize I have left UAE for good. I am leaving behind my friends, folks, school….etc. I really don’t know what's in store for me next….will I ever see Neetha again?….. how would college be?.... how's life gonna be in med school? …… and WHY THE HELL R THEY SERVING COFFEE JUS AFTER LUNCH????

The year of 2001 was a terror filled year for all the people who had to take flights to travel around the world. The 9/11 bombing…the Khandhahar hijacking…. Every1 had their reasons to believe that they were gonna get hijacked and get blown up in a plane. Any country ending with- “sthan”, a bearded man and an aeroplane were like 3 slots in a jackpot machine to getting hijacked!!! Moreover a few days back, I had watched final destination  with my buddies and it seriously didn’t help for this trip! I cautiously looked around to observe the bearded men in the flight. There were a couple of em but seemed harmless for the time being. More over, c'mon what are the chances of getting hijacked? I read someplace in a magazine sum time back that serving coffee at abrupt times in a flight was a training mechanism adopted by the airline staff so as to avoid panic in case of an emergency.

“Excuse me ……. Would u like Coffee or Tea, sir?” as I look up I see this airhostess staring at me a with a white cup. “Errr….Coffee will do!” She pours me a steaming cup of black coffee. COFFEE??? I don't even drink coffee…. Coffee upsets my tummy…. man I am overreacting!!! I reassure myself that everything will be alright and take a few sips of my coffee. It is not short before I could hear rumbling sounds from my stomach. Yep …. Call of the wild…..I have to take a dump! As I loosen my seat belt, there's a sudden announcement from the cockpit “THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING. DUE TO SOME TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES WE ARE BEING FORCED TO LAND IN OMAN. I REQUEST ALL PASSENGERS TO REMAIN SEATED WHILE WE MAKE OUR DESCENT, THANK YOU”. So I figured 2 things are certain…. I am never gonna see my girlfriend again and if I ever survive this I am never gonna have coffee during a flight. This was bad! Really really bad!!! I am scared the shit outta my brains and secondly I had to shit so bad!! DAMN COFFEE!!! I could see my autopsy report already “VICTIM SHAT HIMSELF TO DEATH BEFORE DYING OF SEVERE BURNS!!!”

I look outta the window and all I see is desert, lots and lots of desert. I knew it!! The captain lied to us….he's gonna land us in Afghanisthan coz he's got a gun to his head!!! As we closed into the runway, I could see a lotta military vehicles and camps. As soon as we landed, we were instructed by the cabin crew to remove our footwear, leave all our personal belongings and baggage in the flight and proceed to the nearest exit. Refusing to believe the harsh reality, I still figured this could be candid camera or some wierdo reality show! Or MAYBE it could be a mass burglary and they r after our duty free stuff! The exits did not have those huge sliding ladders, instead there was this huge inflated slide ladder on which we had to slide down. Trust me the way the children were sliding down that thing made us look like a bunch of pussies. I remember this one lady who refused to take of her Gucci shoes and this another moron who wanted to slide down with his samsonite briefcase. As soon as the endurance test was over, we kids were escorted by this huge black guy with an arab accent screaming “YAALLLLAAAA!!!!” at the top of his voice. This is it….this is a terrorist camp filled with horny gay pathans. They were gonna ass rape us and bargain us for terrorists. We were taken to this mess hall where we kids travelling alone were placed separately. Never in my life had I felt so alone and scared.

A few hours later, a hefty military guy walks in with a trolley and looks at my face and asks “SANDWICH?”. Petrified I nodded my head and kindly declined his offer. A decision which I was so grateful many years later after watching Harold and Kumar’s COCKMEAT SANDWICH from guantamela bay!!!!! During the painful ordeal of waiting and chit chat with fellow passengers I come to learn that there was indeed a bomb threat in our flight and that is why we were forced to land at the Oman military air base. (thank god my ass is safe now!!!) A little later a military guy along with the captain of the flight comes to the hall and announces to us that there is no bomb on the flight and we are clear for take off. So everyone's like clapping and rejoicing so we can get on with our journey. As I walked back to the runway, I saw the same plane which had the bomb threat lying on the runway. WE WERE GONNA BOARD THE SAME FLIGHT??? WHERE IS THE NEW PLANE??!!!! Suddenly my crazy alter ego was back again. What if the military guys missed the bomb somewhere on the flight? What if one of the passengers had the bomb strapped on them?? What if the Omani guys were in this together with the Al Qaeda and then planted the bomb???? A million thoughts raced through my mind again, noticing the sudden panicking in the crowd I figured I wasn’t the only one with the disturbing thoughts.

PHASE II of the journey:

“THE EXITS FROM THE PLANE ARE FROM HERE , HERE AND HERE….” said the air hostess pointing at the exits and showing us again how to inflate the life jackets. Come on!! This time I was more convinced I wouldn't be needing those life jackets. However, despite my apprehensions, the flight takes off from the Oman base. Due to the long delay, our flight which was originally supposed to land in Trivandrum first was now rescheduled to land in Kochi. The next two hours of my flight was agonizing to the core. It was like that scene from Swordfish where Hugh Jackman had to hack through an FBI site with a gun to his head and hot latina giving him a blowjob. Well here there was no latina, only my uncleji sitting next to me. I was for some freaking reason convinced that this plane was gonna blow any second. The funny thing about knowing that you’re gonna die is not the fear of dying but rather the wait. I looked outside the window and I saw a lotta ocean. I wondered if sharks were really as mean as they were portrayed by Spielberg in JAWS. Well, I would definitely make a good three course supper for a great white. My uncleji sitting next to me was supposed to attend his house warming in a few days. Another man was gonna attend his daughter’s marriage. Families and children scared stiff in there. I selflessly for the first time in my entire life wished that in case of something unfortunate to happen, I really hoped they made it instead of me. I also prayed my girl who got me into this shit in the first place got hit by a bus!!!

So it happens, I wasn’t the only one who was having all these weird things going through my head. If a 17yr old kid can cook up all this shit in his brain, forget what a buncha crazy ass bachelor mallu guys cld do. They figure this is gonna be their last flight and start opening their booze from Duty Free. Well, who could blame them, this could be their last drink.

It was 12 midnight, finally we arrive in Kochi after an agonizing and a nerve wreckin ordeal. Never before I was so glad to be on the ground. I wondered if I could get down at Kochi and get a cab to Trivandrum. Last thing I wanted was to travel in this not so sure for how long plane till Trivandrum. But then my nakki mallu alter ego sets in and say “listen! you paid for the trip all the way to Trivandrum, so why waste the fare. what harm could a lil bomb do??”. That’s when I hear this loud INQUILAB ZINDABAD!!!!!!!! I am like WTF!!! Now what???? It seems the crazy ass mallu guys whom I mentioned earlier, got so fucking wasted and were demanding an explanation as to why we weren't dropped at Trivandrum first and they wanted to see the pilot. Oh btw some moron had also formed an action committee too by now. They were literally sitting on the floor and screaming slogans!!! This cant be happening I thought! I just wanted to reach home and get sum sleep and these bitches were holding up the take off by causing all this commotion in the flight. Finally, the co pilot comes out and tries to negotiate with these intoxicated morons! So their so called representative who called himself Mr. Manoharan from Kollam, comes forward and says that they have just one demand to allow the take off….. and that is that the flight should be stopped at Kollam so that passengers from there can get down in Kollam ( for people who haven’t been to Kerala….. Kollam is like in between Kochi and Trivandrum and there's no freaking airport there!!!) . The pilot who was now visibly very irritated agreed to the terms and conditions so as to get on with his duties. And hence everyone is back to their positions once again and hip hip hurray's for Mr. Manoharan who now passed out his last peg of whisky. The flight finally takes off from Kochi and I swear to god what was in store for the next half an hour was far worse compared what I had jus gone through in the past 12 hours!!!! The weather was an absolute ripper. Thunderstorm was causing a hell lot of turbulence inside the flight and by now I totally forgot about the bomb! I was more concerned about the thunder and lightening what was going on outside. As I look out through the window, by god, I saw the most terrifying lightening bolt in close range.GULP!!! I look over to Uncleji next to me for some reassurance “ uncle this lightening wont affect the plane right?? I mean they must have some counter mechanism for it right???” ( I mean c'mon, people at Rolls Royce engines couldn't be that stupid!!!). Uncleji goes like “ NO WAY SON!!!! Planes dun have anything like that. If lightening hits us….that it!!! KA BOOM!!!” KA BOOM I wondered. Wonder if this optimistic jackass ever got hit by lightening. My selfish alter ego kicks back in. I really couldn't believe I just prayed this fucker survives the crash a few hours ago!!! The turbulence was starting to make me really sick now. I felt like throwing up. Mr. Manoharan had puked and passed out on his seat during the whole ordeal. But the funniest of all guys was this one fellow, who was clinching on to a bag of peanuts. He looked very nervous, he looked as if he was up to something. Maybe he was the terrorist!! Why was he cautiously looking around??? Should I inform the cabin crew or should I pounce on him with uncleji’s help??? Suddenly he does the most unthinkable thing!! As one of the airhostess walked by, this fellow pulls out his hand slowly from his jacket pocket and gropes her ass!!!! She lets out a shriek and he looked relived as if he just lost his virginity! Seems he was convinced like me that the flight was gonna go down in the thunderstorm, so he lived his wildest fantasy!!! Well, atleast he got his tickets worth.The whole commotion wakes up Mr. Manoharan who screams “WHY HASN’T THIS PLANE STOPPED IN KOLLAM???” In a few minutes we land Trivandrum and as soon as we hit the runway, Uncleji sitting next to me jumps up and opens his overhead cabinet ( a very peculiar behavior I have observed in keralites!!!) A bottle lands on his head and he passes out. My guess was right it was Chivas.

Finally, after 12 grueling hours, we reach our destination. I come out of the airport more than relived anything. This was by far the worst experience of my life. It comes to my attention from my cousins that all the hoax bout the bomb on the flight was a diversion used by sum guys to smuggle a couple of kilos of gold through the seaport. But who the hell gave a damn anymore. I was jus glad to be alive and not eaten by sharks or ass raped by my hijackers. As I tucked myself to sleep, tired as ever I received a message on my cellphone. It was from my gal : “hope ur flite was fun dear, missed u loads, too bad I cldnt make it. It cld have been sweet!!”

Ya rite screw you B****!!!

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