Return journey
My journey from Omaha was quite peaceful as I reached Chennai in near perfect health, physically and mentally.
If anyone asks me about this journey they'll probably get an earful about waiting in airports. In all I have waited at various airports across the world for 21 hours, in addition to some 4 hours wait inside the airplane.
I waited for 2 hours at the Eppley airfield in Omaha before I actually rushed to catch my flight. In fact, we had to knock on the door of the gate as we were under the impression that plane was going away leaving its most loyal passenger to wait some more.
Except for the good looking flight attendant of the American Eagle flight, nothing interesting happened as we landed at the O'Hare Int'l airport in Chicago. This was at about noon local time and my flight to India was a good 8 hours later.
Phase 2 of waiting at airports included reflecting on my two months stay in Omaha, reading a novel by Billie Letts,'where the heart lies', smiling benignly as a family on their way to Switzerland was forced by the airline guys to open up their overweight luggage (which included about 20 pairs of women's shoes they had to get rid of), eating a pizza (and wondering if I would be pulled up for being overweight myself !) and then getting into a chat with a Goan family settled in Dallas. This
family of an 81 year old man, his daughter, her husband and their two american born teenage girls was to be with me till the last phase of my waiting at the B'bay airport.
I slept a lot on my way to London and time passed real quick that way. We had to wait in the airplane for about 4 hours as it was cleaned first and then there obviously was some problem as power inside was going off and on. And then when a passenger sitting behind me asked the flight attendant the reason for the delay, she gave him a beautiful smile and told him that the Heathrow airport is one of the busiest in the world and you hardly get a chance to take off from there and she walked away even as the guy was grumbling about the plight of the relatives waiting in Bombay.
The flight to Bombay passed off quickly too as I slept a lot, read my novel and then watched the animated 'tarzan'. We had a terrific feel of home coming as Bombay greeted us with the smell of earth sprinkled on by the early drops of rain. It felt really good. And then there was another 11 hour wait in the transit lounge, where I finished my novel, talked some more with my Goan friends, had breakfast (for free), made calls and slept some more. I woke up to a crackling voice as someone was making a long distance call but who didn't believe in the ability of the modern gadgets in sending the message across. He was so loud that I wondered if the poor telephone was needed at all. The whole transit lounge, except for a british lady who resembled Hulk Hogan, was up by the time our man finished his call. Then there was this Air India guy who kept coming around asking every person in the lounge if the flight leaving currently was not where he should be !
The best part was my flight from Mumbai to Chennai, where a really tall,fat, dark guy with a complete bald head, a thick Mustache and a round face was in such deep sleep that two flight attendants had to shake him real hard for 2 minutes and ask him if he wanted anything for lunch.He opened one eye, looked at them,said "Chicken" and dozed off. And when they managed to make him eat finally, he started complaining that there ought not be food served on non-smoking flights.
We got down in chennai at 230 in the afternoon. As I was leaving the plane a board said, "Watch your steps". I checked out my luggage which was tampered, broken and been tore apart, may be as I waited in the lounge in Bombay. I walked out, took a Taxi and was on my way home with the sun working overtime and the familiar dust settling down on my face.
If anyone asks me about this journey they'll probably get an earful about waiting in airports. In all I have waited at various airports across the world for 21 hours, in addition to some 4 hours wait inside the airplane.
I waited for 2 hours at the Eppley airfield in Omaha before I actually rushed to catch my flight. In fact, we had to knock on the door of the gate as we were under the impression that plane was going away leaving its most loyal passenger to wait some more.
Except for the good looking flight attendant of the American Eagle flight, nothing interesting happened as we landed at the O'Hare Int'l airport in Chicago. This was at about noon local time and my flight to India was a good 8 hours later.
Phase 2 of waiting at airports included reflecting on my two months stay in Omaha, reading a novel by Billie Letts,'where the heart lies', smiling benignly as a family on their way to Switzerland was forced by the airline guys to open up their overweight luggage (which included about 20 pairs of women's shoes they had to get rid of), eating a pizza (and wondering if I would be pulled up for being overweight myself !) and then getting into a chat with a Goan family settled in Dallas. This
family of an 81 year old man, his daughter, her husband and their two american born teenage girls was to be with me till the last phase of my waiting at the B'bay airport.
I slept a lot on my way to London and time passed real quick that way. We had to wait in the airplane for about 4 hours as it was cleaned first and then there obviously was some problem as power inside was going off and on. And then when a passenger sitting behind me asked the flight attendant the reason for the delay, she gave him a beautiful smile and told him that the Heathrow airport is one of the busiest in the world and you hardly get a chance to take off from there and she walked away even as the guy was grumbling about the plight of the relatives waiting in Bombay.
The flight to Bombay passed off quickly too as I slept a lot, read my novel and then watched the animated 'tarzan'. We had a terrific feel of home coming as Bombay greeted us with the smell of earth sprinkled on by the early drops of rain. It felt really good. And then there was another 11 hour wait in the transit lounge, where I finished my novel, talked some more with my Goan friends, had breakfast (for free), made calls and slept some more. I woke up to a crackling voice as someone was making a long distance call but who didn't believe in the ability of the modern gadgets in sending the message across. He was so loud that I wondered if the poor telephone was needed at all. The whole transit lounge, except for a british lady who resembled Hulk Hogan, was up by the time our man finished his call. Then there was this Air India guy who kept coming around asking every person in the lounge if the flight leaving currently was not where he should be !
The best part was my flight from Mumbai to Chennai, where a really tall,fat, dark guy with a complete bald head, a thick Mustache and a round face was in such deep sleep that two flight attendants had to shake him real hard for 2 minutes and ask him if he wanted anything for lunch.He opened one eye, looked at them,said "Chicken" and dozed off. And when they managed to make him eat finally, he started complaining that there ought not be food served on non-smoking flights.
We got down in chennai at 230 in the afternoon. As I was leaving the plane a board said, "Watch your steps". I checked out my luggage which was tampered, broken and been tore apart, may be as I waited in the lounge in Bombay. I walked out, took a Taxi and was on my way home with the sun working overtime and the familiar dust settling down on my face.
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