Thursday, October 2, 2008

The jinxed affair...sigh!

There had been so many incidents which I would have liked to pen down, but guess laziness creeped in more often than not and hence the reason for no posts in a long long time (not that I wrote a lot earlier :P). Nevertheless, I try yet again. Here it is before I digress from what I wanna write..

This is about my experiences with the air travel I have had in the last one year or so. Well, it cannot get more jinxed than this...I have narrated this some zillion times to my near and dear ones.... Well, I think I can write a book on my jinxed affair.. and I wish if this post was like excerpts from that book, but that would mean me writing it for eternity :) Here are some bits and pieces of it..[I mean it!]

So, there could be 'n' possible ways in which one can have a bad experience when it comes to air travel and trust me I have almost been through most of them astonishingly.. One argument could be that it happens with almost everyone, but not every single time you travel..! As I mentioned earlier this post is about my travel fiasco in the last one year, and believe me or not, there had been a goof up every single time I have hit the airport!!!

My flights which would probably on time for most of the time, would get delayed within 5 mins of me stepping inside the airport..I give a window period of 3 hours for my connecting flight, but since I have a constant companion in Mr Murphy, my original flight has to get delayed. Ok fine I am late for my connecting flight, but still enough time to just make it.. Oh no, Murphy says, "Son! you have lost your baggage, you gotta wait!" I am like "Holy smoly!" and the next thing I hear from the Jet Airways executive, "Sorry Sir! The boarding gates are closed!". All I had to say was "Thank you very much!"

Next incident - I have this tendency of dozing off whenever, I am sitting idle even if thats like few minutes.. And it so happened was that I napped 5 mins before the boarding time, and the next thing I heard was [after about 20 mins] "This is the last and final call for passenger Manoj Balaji travelling from IA............"[[Oh, someone flicked my silver bracelet my friend had given while I was napping! :(] and I woke up abruptly and rushed towards the boarding gate..At the gate, the executive says " Where the hell were you? !@#$$ {series of epithets} " and while I got down from the flight, the flight captain sarcastically said "Mr Manoj I hope you had an enjoyable flight, we sure did because of you!". I Bewildered,I gave one embarrassing smile and just ran outta there..

I am an eternal optimist [that kinda fits in here, so my obvious critics please don't question that statement ;) ] and once I booked a 6 AM flight to attend my friends wedding. .My best friend.. Sounds good haan.. may be not enough to wake me up on time for the flight (probably I needed a Sunitha yell..more on it later) I opened my eyes, I am still in bed, the room was pitch dark - I looked at the time - 5.40 AM.. I am like, "F***!" I just got up, took my bag(luckily I had packed!) and rushed to the airport (with whatever I was wearing!!). On my way in the rick, I called up the Indigo guys and in a vain and futile attempt this is what the conversation went like:

Me: Mam, is the 6 AM flight to Bangalore on time?
Executive: Yes Sir, the boarding gates are closed, its about to depart.
Me: [wanted to ask why aint it late today of all days!?!] Eh.. Is there any possibility if you could hold the flight for me, I will be there in few mins ? [too ambitious boy!]
Executive: Sorry sir, you are a "No show" passenger.. We cant, flight is about to leave
Me: Ok whatever that means, could you still hold it? [awkward Joey expression]

She probably wanted to say buzz off, but she did it in a way she was taught in her training days.. And I missed the flight.. Took the next flight [man you are so rich!!] and yeah it was indeed "My Best Friend's wedding!" Sigh..!

Oh! I have survived one car accident as well on my way to the airport. I had my friend's car burn outta fuel right at the airport entrance... The list goes on.. Anything related to "Air travel" has some eventful story behind it.. Well, I have started cherishing it now.. Its fun.. Though sometimes its a big hole on your pocket.. :P

Guess many more to come.. till then "Bon Voyage!"

1 comment:

some1unowell said...

hmmmm....well..i'm at the other end of the spectrum...i just hate air travel..have been on a flight only once and felt my sinus wud explode..yeah but other than that only complaint..bloody ice cold burger..(it was a low cost airline which wasn't supposed to give anything :D )and the pilot's "sweet" voice abt altitude and speed didnt allow me to sleep on the 6am flite..