While loitering inside the Airport after checking in and clearing the security before boarding my flight to Bhubaneswar, I saw Samosa displayed at Rs.250 a piece behind glass cover at a store. It reminded me another saying in Hindi - "BOSS PE BHAROSA AUR AIRPORT ME SAMOSA, DONO MEHNGA HOTI HAI" (Trust on Boss and Samosa at Airport could be costly).
The Air India flight to Bhubaneswar starts from from Domestic Terminal 3. No sooner I checked in for my last leg of flight to Odisha's capital, than I settled down on one of several empty chairs next to the boarding area around 3 AM in the morning. Another 4 hours of waiting time before I catch my flight to Bhubaneswar, so I tried to catch up my lost sleep. But the jet lag refused to cooperate. Eyes and ears wide open I spent looking at loitering passengers. Eyes soothed by staring at neatly dressed air hostesses sliding their wheeled bags in one hand and speaking on cell phone in another. Ears not as I could distinctly hear a guy passing by farting loudly as it faded due to what we studied in Physics called Doppler's effect.
As it neared the scheduled departure time of 7AM, the sparcely populated area slowly started to fill out. The sun brightened the horizon, revealing the array of Aircrafts on the turmac, spraying golden hue on the Orange colored Air India Aircrafts. I could recognize the typical Odia crowd close by from their looks, language and manners. We Odias are world's champion in mannerism. In one of my earlier trips I saw a guy surreptitiously scratching their private parts in public while waiting to board the flight, grimacing with an orgasmic pleasure of big sighs "Aah, Ooh" laced relief from the itch as the heat and humidity of India can cause real havoc down under. When our eyes met he pretended to adjust his belts with a "Not I" look on his face.
The Air India flight took off from Delhi turmac slicing through the morning air and thin, low hanging clouds like a hot knife through butter. I looked outside the window. Up in the dust free air the orange sun on the Eastern horizon popped up, looking like the sunny side of poached egg for breakfast. Crimson color cloud on the far eastern horizon suddenly looked like hot lava flowing from a dormant volcano turning active. The world above the clouds is dream, taking you to Cloud 9. The world below it is the reality. The roaring big bird was flying high, whizzing past low lying clouds, enabling me to take a peek outside to get a Bird's eye view. The plane was flying over snow white fleece of cloud looking like a vast cotton plantation. Huge mushroom clouds looked like the snow capped castles of some distant planet in the Guardian of the Galaxy.
There was quite bit of turbulence in the first hour of the flight to my final destination. A bunch of kids from a group which looked like a joint family were running around even if the cabin service was suspended with clear instructions from the pilot for everyone to get seated with fastened seat belts. But the recalcitrant kids were running helter skelter. I don't blame the innocent kids, but rather was appalled by the lack of safety concerns from the parents.
Inside domestic flight to Bhubaneswar I have grabbed opportunity to interact with many interesting personalities. Once a man sitting next to me was a garrulous guy full of hot air. He boasted how like Hercules he carries all his company's responsibility on his shoulders and without his expertise it would collapse like a pack of cards. How indispensable he was and has visited all the 75 states of India on various company trips (never knew there were 75 states in India, even if you include the Union territories).
Years ago in one such homeward flight, groggy with jet lag, I dozed off to the humming of the airplane engine for the first half an hour of the flight, my head drooping sideward. The Airhostess politely woke me up - "Veyzz (veg) or Non - Veyzz, Sir ?". "I like non-veg", was my impromptu, reflex action reply in a semi asleep state. She served the food, suspiciously glancing at me, thinking I passed a double entendre. In India non-Veg means food containing meat, fish or poultry, but colloquially it denotes a person with carnal or amorous instinct. Bawdy, dirty jokes in India are often termed as "Non-veg" jokes. Living outside India for a long time had taken its toll on me. I better be careful lest I am branded as a dirty, middle aged man.
As the plane lowered itself preparing to land at Bhubaneswar, the rivulets meandering through the grayish landscape down below formed a spectacular sight, basking in a foggy, grayish and bit dimmed morning sun. The green, undulating waves of Eastern Ghat mountains were swimming in the misty fog. River Mahanadi looked like a huge cold blooded Anaconda taking a sunbath on golden sand to stay warm. Approaching Airport, the river Daya down below appeared like a gargantuan brown horseshoe covered in greenish water.
Every other year I fly over Bhubaneswar, the city I moved into as a 7 year old in 1976 and never left, sadly I see more concrete and asphalt, less green foliage as the asthetic city once known for its salubrious weather slowly turning into an urban jungle. Peeked below to take a view of the city I grew up with to notice that has outgrown itself. Saw multiple skyscrapers staring at the plane from down below as vehicles looking like match boxes were snaking on the highways. I left Bhubaneswar for good for more than a quarter of a century now, but the city has never left me. Way too many skyrises see from the top have gone over the top. They are becoming a growing environmental concern - gonna to bite this city big time sooner or later.
How contrasting is the worms eye view of the sky from the ground to the bird's eye view from the top. It makes me understand the meaning of the phrase "Down To Earth". When it all seems you are on top of the world, in minutes you are back on the ground. So are the vagaries of life. How much and how high you fly you have to come down - in no time you must descent from 39000 feet to ground zero. Airplane teaches us a lesson on life than anything else. My day dreaming came to an abrupt end by by the voice of the stewardess "Please keep your seat belt fastened until the plane comes to a full stop". No sooner the announcement was made than I heard incessant clicks of opening up the seat belts. Surrounding me mobile went up likes the hands in a Baba Ramdev Yoga camp followed by chatters.
Stepping out of Biju Patnaik Airport welcomed by a hot and muggy Bhubaneswar weather, though it was not as bad as it had been during my recent summer visits. My ride was 15 minutes due to no fault with him. His car was stopped for 15 minutes by a police to set some "NETA" (politician) and his entourage pass though. We are probably the only country on earth still clinging to this sick VIP culture, Odisha being in the forefront of it.
I rolled over the windows to take a view of the city where I spent my childhood and youth, savoring the sights of the millieu, as vehicles yonked their way through in a zizzag manner. The breeeze breezing through the window caressed me, drying off the beads of sweat swelling on my chin and forehead. Apparently, the old law of Physics "Evaporation caused cooling" still holds good.
As I stepped out of the vehicle in from of our house, a burst of breeze from South-West made the strangs of hanging green mangoes swung like pendulum. A Koel sitting on the mango tree was cooing, echoing the sweetest sound of the nature from the shadows of the summer heat. A little birdie, smaller in size than Koel on the branch was on a Twitting spree which would have given Donald Trump run for money - "Tweetwoo...tweetwoo.. tweetwoo..", without bothering about character limit. Couple of mongrels seeing new kids in the block gaped at us for a while before melting away chasing each other's tail. It is always a pleasure homecoming to home back home. More later...
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