29th February. Yes, it's true that it comes once every four years. So do such incidents. Moving around in public transport in Calcutta during my years at college and university, and even as I began my teaching career, I gave in to WB government's annual saga of monsoons. It is the same story - same water-logging, same blame-gaming the then opposition, and same solutions to be launched for the next year. To no avail, of course. A great thing about Calcutta though is, it is kind of limited merely to the monsoon exclusive months. Delhi, is a different story of extravagance. One rain, of any kind, and the result is not Calcutta-style poems overflowing on social media, but unending prose of traffic, even though there ain't any visible water-logging. With this introduction, I return to the 29th Feb of 2020.
Dear readers, I was flying back from Calcutta to Delhi, supposed to land around 5.30 pm-ish. I've a thing for pre-booking my seats, and having overcome (rather, found resolution to my nerves in movies) my flight anxiety, which I had suddenly developed about five years back (how time flies), I found myself sandwiched between - excuse my racism here - two Chinese/Japanese/Korean passengers, well-covered in masks. It was the beginning of corona precautions, and I hadn't taken any. I had downloaded Beta (the trashier the movie, the better) though, and DDLJ was my back-up. It was a wonderful flight, with the superbly miserable movie. The girl on my left even indicated if she could watch it too, as there were subtitles. Obviously, I had no problem, and we laughed (co-ordinated on Dhak Dhak Karne Laga) - she without listening, and me having listened intently. We were approaching the climax when the pilot announced descent, around 5ish.
Suddenly, the flight took an almost Top Gun like momentous upward tilt, as the crew disclosed that heavy rains were lashing Delhi, and there was no way we could land now. Readers, at this point my palms would have ideally turned to water, but the pleasure of being able to end Beta in-flight delayed it. The Chinese/Japanese/Korean girl opened her mask for a bit and mouthed "very nice though tacky" (I swear) at the end titles. The flight was circling dark clouds endlessly, and as I moved on to DDLJ, the girl opened her window pane to soak in the weather (oh horror!). I tried to tell her, pull it down and check out India's best movie, but she was kind of intent on experiencing the major upheavals. At one point I think she gave up, and started following SRK and his pranks in Zurich. The pilot matter-of-factly informed to expect severe turbulence now as we were entering some godforsaken arena of stormy clouds. Passengers were jittery, noisy, disturbed and wide-awake. I was listening to Ho Gaya Hai Tujkho To Pyaar Sajna, just noticing that I needed a chocolate now, when we touched down, without any warning! I can still feel the impact, believe me. I checked the time, it was around 6.25 pm and the flight taxied for another good deal till we finally got off the flight around 7ish. On landing, the pilot did extend an apology for his decision, but when I got to know later that as many as 14 flights were diverted to Amritsar, Lucknow, Jaipur and Ahmedabad that evening, I did not have any complaints. It took another good hour to get an Uber, and I finally reach home around 9.30 pm.
To think of it, this was barely a month ago. A time when the most effective solution to any of my frivolous problems was Bollywood. These days even the experience of buying grocery feels more turbulent. With the lockdown extension now looking more and more probable, and needed, god knows when we will be landing suddenly into safety. Till then, readers, please find your own Bollywood, and stay home!
Dear readers, I was flying back from Calcutta to Delhi, supposed to land around 5.30 pm-ish. I've a thing for pre-booking my seats, and having overcome (rather, found resolution to my nerves in movies) my flight anxiety, which I had suddenly developed about five years back (how time flies), I found myself sandwiched between - excuse my racism here - two Chinese/Japanese/Korean passengers, well-covered in masks. It was the beginning of corona precautions, and I hadn't taken any. I had downloaded Beta (the trashier the movie, the better) though, and DDLJ was my back-up. It was a wonderful flight, with the superbly miserable movie. The girl on my left even indicated if she could watch it too, as there were subtitles. Obviously, I had no problem, and we laughed (co-ordinated on Dhak Dhak Karne Laga) - she without listening, and me having listened intently. We were approaching the climax when the pilot announced descent, around 5ish.
Suddenly, the flight took an almost Top Gun like momentous upward tilt, as the crew disclosed that heavy rains were lashing Delhi, and there was no way we could land now. Readers, at this point my palms would have ideally turned to water, but the pleasure of being able to end Beta in-flight delayed it. The Chinese/Japanese/Korean girl opened her mask for a bit and mouthed "very nice though tacky" (I swear) at the end titles. The flight was circling dark clouds endlessly, and as I moved on to DDLJ, the girl opened her window pane to soak in the weather (oh horror!). I tried to tell her, pull it down and check out India's best movie, but she was kind of intent on experiencing the major upheavals. At one point I think she gave up, and started following SRK and his pranks in Zurich. The pilot matter-of-factly informed to expect severe turbulence now as we were entering some godforsaken arena of stormy clouds. Passengers were jittery, noisy, disturbed and wide-awake. I was listening to Ho Gaya Hai Tujkho To Pyaar Sajna, just noticing that I needed a chocolate now, when we touched down, without any warning! I can still feel the impact, believe me. I checked the time, it was around 6.25 pm and the flight taxied for another good deal till we finally got off the flight around 7ish. On landing, the pilot did extend an apology for his decision, but when I got to know later that as many as 14 flights were diverted to Amritsar, Lucknow, Jaipur and Ahmedabad that evening, I did not have any complaints. It took another good hour to get an Uber, and I finally reach home around 9.30 pm.
To think of it, this was barely a month ago. A time when the most effective solution to any of my frivolous problems was Bollywood. These days even the experience of buying grocery feels more turbulent. With the lockdown extension now looking more and more probable, and needed, god knows when we will be landing suddenly into safety. Till then, readers, please find your own Bollywood, and stay home!
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