An Incredible Experience

Yeah.,..that's what I should say of what I have had today...!!!! the 30th of December 2005......coz....today will go in MY history as the day when I have had my first flying experience..!!!! Yes....my first flight...certainly not a la THE AVIATOR, but a domestic flying experience... from Bangalore to Coimbatore... an exact 50 minute flying experience.....incredulously incredible..............

It all unfolded rather unexpectedly....I had tripped on the road...on road to office...yesterday...morning....and it was diagonalized as a marginal hairline fracture...and I couldn't keep continuing at my house in Bangalore due to logistics..:-) so had to rush to my residence in Coimbatore at the earliest. For all the logical reasoning I had reasoned and scored in GRE...during my college days...I couldn't find a better way than traveling by train....and that too right on new year's eve...with this fractured leg..but for my friend Sriram, who sparked off the idea that I could travel by air, provided flights are available to Coimbatore...I knew they were available and got it checked by one of flight travel savvy friend Pankaj......So he had booked an online ticket for me in AIR DECCAN, which boasted of 2.5 Grant as its worth in Rupees...so I had finalized the travel...but was little concerned and slightly remorse that my first flying experience had to be so quick, unplanned and at a not so happy moment...when I am left limping...but regrouped myself..and called up the customer service of Air Deccan and checked if I could use the services of a wheel chair till I board the flight ...

I waited patiently for 15 minutes and then got a friendly sounding lady online, told my situation, for which she readily identified a work around, and said would cost another half a grant...and I could do nothing but to oblige for it....

So came the moment, at 5.30 AM, on 30th December, my kind room-mate Lakshmi Narasimhan, had given me hand (literally) till the airport in Bangalore from where a courteous Air Deccan employee reassured that he would help me until I take my seat in the flight...........huh... I was relieved....had already checked in at 6.10 AM...so started my 2 Hour wait.....my iPod came handy here...so never felt lonely...couldn't even call any of my friends...coz....It was still early morning for my ilk of people....got to see Bappi Lahiri, Mahesh Bhupati and Shabana Azmi...during my 2 hour long wait..and finally got to the moment when the clock showed 7.50 AM......I was allowed out of the waiting space of the bangalore terminal. While others got into the Air Deccan shuttle, I was special....;-D.........was taken straight to the airbus in my wheel chair on the runway.....was the first to get into the flight....

It was quite a small ferry, relative to what I had seen in movies...:-)...was greeted by a couple of amicable air-hostesses.....and escorted to my seat..which was just near the exit..to ease my movement ... I wasn't exactly surprised with the hospitality...because we indians are also getting used to such world class hospitality elsewhere outside the airport cordons as well.....but nevertheless good customer care is always pleasant...so was I..pleased with Air Deccan's hospitality....though it was short-lived..just 50 minutes..

Yeah..the flight started at zero eight zero zero hours..... I was preparing myself mentally for the first up-lift..........and it came 7 minutes later..and when the flight lifted into the air....blup.........butterflies fluttered in my stomach......and my ears got locked out..............and then bailed out of the lock, by my cap...It was extremely good to see myself in the ranks of the clouds...and above them as well....the cliched, “ I am on top of the world”...was the only thing that came to my mind...laughed it off....hehehe...

Then before, I could recuperate from this incrediblity....I could see TN government buses on road..below me....and I was amazed...in short...and when I looked at my watch..it showed 8.50 AM and then thud.............the flight landed in the civil aerodrome in Coimbatore, the landing---pulled people in front..and it was as though, I would fall in front of th vechile's wheels...:-)....and in another 5-10 minutes....the flight came to a grinding halt...and another courteous (customary trait of any native coimbatorian) gentleman escorted me in a wheel chair till the car at the entrance of the airport....my parents had mixed feelings while seeing me, happy to have me back in Coimbatore, but sad to see me in a wheel chair...:-I.......

yeah....this brings the 1 hour long episode to an end...rather naturally............ and see you sometime later.. with some other experience...............

Cheers,
Rajesh