Just yesterday, I flew in to Kolkata from Bombay to attend a wedding in the family. I'll be staying here for the next ten days, and for all the people who've never been to Kolkata, let me tell you everything here, I repeat, everything, is an adventure (to put it mildly). And it starts right from the plane ride.
This was the first time in the sixteen years of my life, that I had flown without my father, who usually handles everything throughout our vacations, especially flights, tickets and all that, and all we have to do is stand in queues and get our bags checked. So, I was determined to be the responsible one this time. No more yelling at how uncooperative and irresponsible I was. But no. Everything absolutely had to go wrong in this flight.
The process was relatively smooth till we boarded the aircraft. However, the moment we stepped onto it, EVERYTHING WENT WRONG. The passengers took ages to put their bags in the overhand compartment and settle down. So obviously, we had to wait for a good fifteen minutes with heavy bags in our hands till we could actually sit. When we did sit, my sister insisted that I unload weird things from her bagpack like pencils, glitter pens, a sketchpad, and sunglasses. God know why I couldn't have done it after the flight took off. The man in front of me decided to recline his seat all the way back, till the thing almost touched my nose.
And the babies. There were four kids on the tiny, cramped flight, and all of them decided to cry at the same time. And I hate babies. The funny thing is, that the more they saw the other babies cry, the harder they cried themselves. It was a disaster. And the flight hadn't even taken off.
The only bright side was that there was a seriously hot steward in the aircraft. If only he would at least look at me... *sigh*
This lady who sat diagonally across my aisle seat, was the mother of the most annoying baby. She was travelling alone with her daughter, and by the looks of it, did not know what to do with the wailing kid at all. Apparently her idea of good parenting was changing her kid's clothes every hour (in full view of the other passengers). She then decided to feed her kid some rice and dal, from an old school tiffin box, and of course, spilled that shit all over the place.
I decided by then that it was too much for me to take, and promptly went off to sleep. I was woken by some yelling from the other passengers, one of whom was demanding: "IT IS MY RIGHT TO HAVE SERVICE! STOP TAKING SO LONG TO GIVE ME FOOD! MY WIFE IS HUNGRY AND I JUST WANT TO EAT!!" Hot Steward was being yelled at, poor guy.
Then the Weird Plane Lady (the clueless one, with the kid), inspired, also started yelling at Hot Steward, screaming "WE PAID SO MUCH MONY TO COME ON THIS FLIGHT, AND YOU CAN'T GIVE US A DECENT BOTTLE OF WATER?! I SHOULD HAVE FLOWN MY KINGFISHER ONLY. JET IS NOTHING COMPARED TO KINGFISHER." And of course, the kids were still crying.
At that point, I started having this weirdass fantasy where I stood up and got out into the aisle and in a very clear, loud voice said:
"Can I have your attention please? Thank you. You, sir, (pointing at the old passenger who was screaming at Hot Steward) need to stop yelling. If you are hungry, then you and your wife should just suck it up. Breaking news, we're all hungry, but we were smart enough to eat something before boarding the flight. And you, Weird Plane Lady, why don't you just shut your baby the fuck up, for heaven's sake? And clean up the mess that you made on the floor, huh? Who throws around styrofoam cups on a plane? And did you really expect better service than what you're getting? You paid 3000 bucks for the ticket. They're not going to give you A-List celebrity status. And that, baby of yours, SHUT IT THE FUCK UP. In fact, all of you baby people, if you don't manage to shut those whiny, annoying creatures in the next thirty seconds, I will physically hurl all four of them out of the window. What kind of dipshit parents don't know how to quiet down their own child? I can do MUCH better, believe me, I've done it with my sister, and I don't even like kids! And to all the other noisy people, this is a three hour flight, that's landing half an hour early, so just go off to sleep or something, but don't complain like whiny 3 year olds!"
After which, I walked away in a huff, to get myself a glass of water, and Hot Steward, so impressed by how great a speaker I am, came initiate me as the newest member of the mile high club. (Sorry, raging hormones and all that.)
That's not what happened though. What did happen, was the kids continued to cry, the passengers continued yelling at Hot Steward, and not even really loud dubstep would drown out their complaints. By the time Hot Steward did come to my place, half an hour had passed. But I wasn't complaining. On the inside, I was screaming: Finally, he'll look at you! And he'll ask you what you want to eat!! My mom had different plans though, and before I could do, or say anything she ordered us three chicken sandwiches, paid him some money and shooed him away. Of course, I was heartbroken. Hot Steward still hadn't looked at me. But, suddenly, he did a double take and started to speak to me. You can only imagine what I felt like when he said, "Ma'am, I think you have something on your face." I pawed at my cheek, only to discover that apparently while I was asleep, my sister had drawn all over my face. Houses, horses, men, women, even Harry Potter. I wanted to jump out of the plane, and die.
At that point, I decided to give up, and to save myself for another day, another Hot Steward.
After we touched ground, we had to of course collect our suitcases, which took another forty minutes, and can probably occupy another blog post. Oh well.
I know this is a really late post, it's late mostly because I didn't have much to write about. But, I'm in a wedding in Kolkata now, and if there is anything I can blog about endlessly, it's the crazy shit my family does before, during and after weddings. So rest assured (or lament), because I will be posting soon again.
This was the first time in the sixteen years of my life, that I had flown without my father, who usually handles everything throughout our vacations, especially flights, tickets and all that, and all we have to do is stand in queues and get our bags checked. So, I was determined to be the responsible one this time. No more yelling at how uncooperative and irresponsible I was. But no. Everything absolutely had to go wrong in this flight.
The process was relatively smooth till we boarded the aircraft. However, the moment we stepped onto it, EVERYTHING WENT WRONG. The passengers took ages to put their bags in the overhand compartment and settle down. So obviously, we had to wait for a good fifteen minutes with heavy bags in our hands till we could actually sit. When we did sit, my sister insisted that I unload weird things from her bagpack like pencils, glitter pens, a sketchpad, and sunglasses. God know why I couldn't have done it after the flight took off. The man in front of me decided to recline his seat all the way back, till the thing almost touched my nose.
And the babies. There were four kids on the tiny, cramped flight, and all of them decided to cry at the same time. And I hate babies. The funny thing is, that the more they saw the other babies cry, the harder they cried themselves. It was a disaster. And the flight hadn't even taken off.
The only bright side was that there was a seriously hot steward in the aircraft. If only he would at least look at me... *sigh*
This lady who sat diagonally across my aisle seat, was the mother of the most annoying baby. She was travelling alone with her daughter, and by the looks of it, did not know what to do with the wailing kid at all. Apparently her idea of good parenting was changing her kid's clothes every hour (in full view of the other passengers). She then decided to feed her kid some rice and dal, from an old school tiffin box, and of course, spilled that shit all over the place.
I decided by then that it was too much for me to take, and promptly went off to sleep. I was woken by some yelling from the other passengers, one of whom was demanding: "IT IS MY RIGHT TO HAVE SERVICE! STOP TAKING SO LONG TO GIVE ME FOOD! MY WIFE IS HUNGRY AND I JUST WANT TO EAT!!" Hot Steward was being yelled at, poor guy.
Then the Weird Plane Lady (the clueless one, with the kid), inspired, also started yelling at Hot Steward, screaming "WE PAID SO MUCH MONY TO COME ON THIS FLIGHT, AND YOU CAN'T GIVE US A DECENT BOTTLE OF WATER?! I SHOULD HAVE FLOWN MY KINGFISHER ONLY. JET IS NOTHING COMPARED TO KINGFISHER." And of course, the kids were still crying.
At that point, I started having this weirdass fantasy where I stood up and got out into the aisle and in a very clear, loud voice said:
"Can I have your attention please? Thank you. You, sir, (pointing at the old passenger who was screaming at Hot Steward) need to stop yelling. If you are hungry, then you and your wife should just suck it up. Breaking news, we're all hungry, but we were smart enough to eat something before boarding the flight. And you, Weird Plane Lady, why don't you just shut your baby the fuck up, for heaven's sake? And clean up the mess that you made on the floor, huh? Who throws around styrofoam cups on a plane? And did you really expect better service than what you're getting? You paid 3000 bucks for the ticket. They're not going to give you A-List celebrity status. And that, baby of yours, SHUT IT THE FUCK UP. In fact, all of you baby people, if you don't manage to shut those whiny, annoying creatures in the next thirty seconds, I will physically hurl all four of them out of the window. What kind of dipshit parents don't know how to quiet down their own child? I can do MUCH better, believe me, I've done it with my sister, and I don't even like kids! And to all the other noisy people, this is a three hour flight, that's landing half an hour early, so just go off to sleep or something, but don't complain like whiny 3 year olds!"
After which, I walked away in a huff, to get myself a glass of water, and Hot Steward, so impressed by how great a speaker I am, came initiate me as the newest member of the mile high club. (Sorry, raging hormones and all that.)
That's not what happened though. What did happen, was the kids continued to cry, the passengers continued yelling at Hot Steward, and not even really loud dubstep would drown out their complaints. By the time Hot Steward did come to my place, half an hour had passed. But I wasn't complaining. On the inside, I was screaming: Finally, he'll look at you! And he'll ask you what you want to eat!! My mom had different plans though, and before I could do, or say anything she ordered us three chicken sandwiches, paid him some money and shooed him away. Of course, I was heartbroken. Hot Steward still hadn't looked at me. But, suddenly, he did a double take and started to speak to me. You can only imagine what I felt like when he said, "Ma'am, I think you have something on your face." I pawed at my cheek, only to discover that apparently while I was asleep, my sister had drawn all over my face. Houses, horses, men, women, even Harry Potter. I wanted to jump out of the plane, and die.
At that point, I decided to give up, and to save myself for another day, another Hot Steward.
After we touched ground, we had to of course collect our suitcases, which took another forty minutes, and can probably occupy another blog post. Oh well.
I know this is a really late post, it's late mostly because I didn't have much to write about. But, I'm in a wedding in Kolkata now, and if there is anything I can blog about endlessly, it's the crazy shit my family does before, during and after weddings. So rest assured (or lament), because I will be posting soon again.
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