The Air India Experience

As I entered the airport 2 hours earlier than the scheduled departure. I noticed a bit of commotion near the Check in counters to my right. As I moved towards the noise, a man asked me dilli? dilli?- I was surprised but soon realized he was one among the many I am gonna meet today from the specie called air India staff. He guided me to the counter to checkin as the automated displays were not working. 15 minutes into the queue and no movement the guy on the counter suddenly stood up in what seemed to be exasperation, announcing that this counter has to close, Move to another line. I moved and the same thing happened. Lazy shit I said to myself only to be proven wrong when I moved to the 3rd line. No it was not laziness, it was the collective lack of knowledge on the part of the counter personnels of this specie- they did not know how to Operate the fucking thing to make it spurt out a boarding paas. But like in all fairy tale movies, this was all but a stage for the hero enter- make the scene so miserable that everyone will feel better when the hero enters no matter how stupid a problem he has to fix. Enter our hero a fAT bald man of about 50, waving his hands and brandishing instructions in total Tashan Marathi. He went to each of those counters and told the lesser mortals how to do it. 1.25 hours to scheduled departure and someone on a counter decided to shout out his doubt to the hero, sir or seat available " nahi hai Kya", dikha ni raha hai. More than a 100 hearts standing in multiple queues since morning must have skipped a beat together. But the hero was, well, was the hero. It turned out the system somehow went to standby and I eventually got my pass with about 50 minutes to go. Quick security check and walk to the entrance gate where a man wanted to check my boarding pass. All smooth until another woman in the passage wanted to do the same and than another man and another till finally I was right outside the aircraft door where the last man (so I thought) checked n stamped it. Enter the aircraft and it was the poor pilot who was standing there to guide people to the seats- none of the airhostesses had come on time!(they evntually filtered in about 10 minutes from then). The aircraft looked comfortable with spacious seating and good leg room for a change. But happiness has a way just like the girl you have always wanted to date - the moment you think that all the hard work's done and you have got close to getting her, she goes away so that you want it more; until you adapt yourself to derive happiness justin the pursuit of it. The air hostesses were...for the lack of worser word - ugly & dumb, the airline was full to the core- heck there were a couple of passengers who did not have a seat. They were supposed to travel on the "little" seats that are meant for air hostesses - yes they were. A few casual instructions and water in a plastic glass from a bottle later, the pilot announces that the flight is late because some passangers have been caught in immigration and with 7 such passengers to go we may take off in about 15-20 minutes! I said - you have got to be kidding me (well actually I said that three worded "fit all" sentence but lets not go overboard on expletives). We took off eventually & smoothly about only 30 minutes later than scheduled but (you probably saw it coming by now) the air hostess did not seem to know what "airplane mode" in a phone is. I tired to explain that in this mode it is as good as an ipod, but she was too scared to agree to my logic. I showed her that I have switched off and she moved away. Of course I switched it on back again but she did not do a repeat act - too scared too go through the techincal lecture once again. Good food and 2 hours of sleep later we were about to land. The air hostess opened a pink poly-bag (circa 2008 - Vinay Pathak Bheja Fry ) and took out a half torn diary. I was curious as she started speaking on phone to someone - god-damn-it - she was the voice of the announcement and she was reading it from those notebooks! I know... but its one of those things that you know happens but don't really want to see happening in front of you. Any which way we did land and land safely.

Chalo Dilli.