Flight Ordeal

First of all, the airports are usually at a distant part of town you don’t visit often. May be you snake up the jammed free way, to reach the airport. And when you get to the airport it is not much easier.

Digital board flash departure times, arrows point in all directions, and winding lines leads to a mishmash of check-out counters. Custom forms need filling, bags need weighing, passport need checking and boarding passes need printing. Toting your awkward handfuls of documents, papers and suitcases, you pass bomb sniffing dogs, security scans and suitcase inspection. Then there is a separation anxiety that comes from watching your luggage disappear on a black rubber belt into a dark tunnel.

It doesn’t end there. Now there are gates to find and fussy announcements about delays and cancellations. As you double check that you have all your forms and you are at the gate for New York, not New Delhi, you wonder if they called your name. If it is your turn to board, if there will be enough space for your carry-on luggage when you find your seat. This is really an exhilarating moment. So many things can go wrong. So when you are through with all the documents, checkpoints and security and finally on the plane, you love it a lot.

The flight takes of and the attendant sneaks you an extra snack as you tilt your seat back, let your eyelids droop, smile and flash back at how far you have come, you have come, you have come, you have come.

And finally, if you are a lucky skunk to find some pretty looking sitting next to you? We are all going to get old one day. So let us love the age we have got and let us not crave the age we are not. And while we are all smiling and climbing that slow stairway to heaven, golf and grand kids, I say there is nothing wrong with crossing our fingers and hoping for a cute seatmate on the next flight to Florida.

Because grandpa’s got a sideways stare. And grandma does not mind peeking either. When we get old, we are the mature, refined, wise old sages of society. We are enjoying the company of some pleasant eye candy with a sweet smile for a few hours up in the sky.