Ready for take-off

Aeroplane.It has been a fascination for the young and the old .The sight of one stands as an advantage for many mothers who struggle to stuff some food into their offspring's mouth . For the toddlers it is truly a mystery as to how that thing {which is not a bird} can fly. And when they reach high school ,Bernoulli comes in with his 'principle' and destroys the mystery and shatters all the mind-blowing theories they might have developed in the context. When it was introduced I am sure it was a rich man's thing {as with any new technology} ,but now thanks to globalisation , liberalization and privatization {as my economics teacher used to say} a new and wonder full concept of low-cost flying has emerged. Low-cost or economical airliners call it what ever u want but there is not denial of the fact that it has made air-travel a dream come true for the so called middle class man/women .

I remember very well my first flight .The moment my mother came bursting through the door and announced that we were going to Bangalore{from Hyderabad} on a plane , I started crying .The endless list of movies with plane crashes and wailing heroines is bound to leave its effect you see. But the flight was real fun . The unlimited chocolates i could have.The neatly arranged snack that they gave us etc etc. I, as a 9 year old was marveled when I saw houses reduced to the size of matchboxes and lakes and ponds becoming tiny blue/green spots on the terrain. Apart from that I have always wondered ,even till date, as to how the air-hostess perform their perfectly synchronized "dance" regarding the safety instructions.They never miss depicting beautifully even a single instruction that is being recited wonderfully in the mics that are hidden systematically .Off course the low-cost airliner does not offer the unlimited stock of chocolates or the packed snack but it sure does allow me to avoid a nasty 36 hour train ride back to my home.

During my recent trips back home by (aahemmmm!!) flight I happened to arrive at the airport some two and a half before my flight.Since I had nothing to do ,I decided to look around and read each and every security information my eyes could find . And I have to say some of them can be really funny and intriguing .For what ever reason ,a particular group of men chose to ram a building with an aeroplane ,the airport security has become more severe.My ticket was checked 5 times and my bag had to go through 2 X-ray scanners which they would have found out to contain nothing other than clothes. As I stood in line to get myself through the metal detector I happened to notice a rule which barred a passenger from taking pickles in the flight . Now until my plane took off I thought about all possible ways in which a passenger can harm the rest and put their lives in jeopardy by using a jar or packet of pickle. All I could think of was that, the passenger would smear the faces of the flight attendants and pilot and co-pilot and some passengers if necessary with his "highly lethal pickle" and hence take over the plane.Just imagine something of this sort happening . The news headlines will read something like "PLANE HIJACKED : MANGO PICKLE USED AS CHIEF WEAPON" . Immediately all the mango pickle industries will be slammed anti-social elements and will result in large scale protest. Thousands of forwards will be sent requesting the closure of these industries. Communities in orkut will be created which will be titled 'anti-pickle' or "we hate pickle" or some such thing. And should the industry yield to these protests and hence close down, the entire population of Telugu people will be up in arms because as I have learned living with them, it is very difficult for them to live and eat knowing that the world production of mango pickle (avvakayya)has stopped.

There was this other rule that if under any circumstances the flight gets over-loaded the concerned authorities have to right to decide which passenger (or article) should be off-loaded. Now ,if under any circumstances the former must occur--imagine the plight of the poor person who till that moment called himself a passenger of that flight. The heavier people will try to hide themselves against all odds.

But no such things happened and I had a safe flight.No wind blowing in my face like in the train or the never ending rhyme of "ticket-ticket" as in the case of a bus . Air travel offers its own trills and I believe it is worth every rupee just for the sheer fun of flying.