A Flight with IC

The work can’t get weirder, more astonishing that it is already by now. Office politics, back stabbing and above all passing the buck is reaching a level from where the whole world becomes visible. Amidst all this, and much more, I was due to travel to Chennai for an official reason.

Chennai as an amazing importance in my life. Not that I was born in here, nor that its of any historical/mythological significance but for some real personal reasons I feel at home in here. Believe me, I do understand tamil, I don’t know from where I got so much of courage to learn a language as distinguished as tamil. And so, it goes natural that I do not want to miss any chance to visit the city.

It was a fine morning, another one of those, oh-let-me-sleep types, where in I pushed myself to board an IC flight to Chennai. Now, IC has a peculiarity that despite the comfortable cushions and smooth lift you are not allowed to sleep. My first “cool” nap was broken by a lady that most certainly had an overdose of a face pack. With a broad smile she offered me a tray with four, yes four, candies. It would have been a real hunger-struck-eat-it-all to have taken them all, I out of my shyness could only take one. Time for another nap!!

Just as I was dreaming about the life after I would have a lot of money, I was woken up by another one of those Oh-God-i-missed-being-miss-india-coz-am-fat!! Lady. She had another set of junk to be gulped down my throat. I did as told!!! Time for another nap!!!

This time I could sleep for a while before I heard the captain speak “All stations alert for landing”. Often, I'm made to think, why pilots are made to speak certain things. “Close and arm all doors”, is one of the first statement that we all hear instead of “Welcome on board”. Every time I hear it I feel as if I am being kidnapped. Next is “All stations alert for a take off!!” which stations is the pilot talking about, Railway stations don’t make sense in here, Radio stations- why do they need to be alert, you want to take off, take it., or police stations-ha ha ha, what makes you think they would even listen what’s being said inside an aircraft while they don’t bother about what being said across their table., etc. You bet these people are most professional of all, as they talk only that much, that they are paid for. They are paid to fly, and they just fly, yeah speaking is necessary to tell passengers that you are not sleeping in the cockpit so just ensure that you speak just about the quantity that is required to gain the faith of the travelers that they are in safe hands.

Nonetheless, the flight took off, and landed at Chennai, all by God’s grace was fine. Here I would like to mention one more habit widely seen-and-hated-but-I-do types. The moment the aircraft lands and does a ceremonial run towards the parking lot, people start getting up from their chairs and start taking out their luggage from the top shelves. I do not blame them for this habit, as its only now that we Indians have started traveling in an “airbus” as often as we were traveling in a bus some time back. Now if you try to build up a differentiation logically between an airbus and a bus then am sure u would come down saying this, “The only difference between the two is of the word Air”. So as typical of us, when the bus reaches its destination we have to rush to pick up our luggage from the top rack and jump off. I slept for another 15 mins!!!

The time that I hate the most had come, I had to get off one more airbus, I hate it because of several reasons: - 1) The phones are switched off, so no one can bother you, 2) You are served by ladies unlike in real life where u are only “asked” by men, 3) You get to feel a zero gravity for free. Etc!!

The journey of life is pretty interesting; it gets you so many experiences that one can narrate anything and make people smile from it. Keep writing, am sure you guys are also traveling, and am sure you would also be having good-bad-ugly experiences, the need is to keep penning it down.

Cheers!!!

(The author is working as a Project Manager at INI Consulting P. Ltd., Mumbai)

Which is more difficult??

I was sitting with a friend of mine and sipping through the piping hot tea made by one of the family members and glancing through the most scintillating and fascinating product of modern times "Television". Often i had wondered how could this small piece can make you such a dull human being that you even forget that you have to complete a lot of stuff.

Nonetheless, i was watching Amitabh bachchan on the opening ceremony of IIFA awards 2007 at the Yorkshire county in UK. And a thought passed by my mind, that thought is the reason for this blog. The thought was "Which is more difficult, the process to attain perfection or to continue carry that perfection for as long as you can".

Now, almost immediately we(my friend and i) stopped talking and went in a deep thought, as if to find an answer of almost anything lies in deep thoughts!!!. but yeah almost after a day, i could ponder a little deep and see if i can compare tangible things. And my friend and i found it out. We compared, process of quality checks with the continuous production of A-class quality product.

Now we since we were two and even, we drew lines with each one being on one side. We need more thoughts on the matter. Please throw in...........

(The author and his friend-Vishwajeet are both working as Project Managers with INI Consulting P Ltd, Mumbai)