The First Time I Flew...

Remember the time when Ross dashed off to the airport to tell Rachel that he Loved her... or When Jim Carrey did the whole Mega airport protocol breach Climax song and dance in Liar Liar to get his wife and son back... or the time when Shahrukh Khan makes that heart wrenching speech just when Rani Mukherjee is all the set to go away forever...

...or the more recent Imran Khan-Genelia caper with the entire security running helter-skelter holding everything and everyone up...?

It has always been extremely fascinating to me, the glamour of the whole airport experience coupled with the tension, the invariable businesslike sterness of everyone at the airport juxtaposed with romance of flying miles away and the ever pining Love which will always win...

Yes, the hopeless romantic that I am, I always wished a take-off would get held up for me, the security would be breached and torn through for me and at the end of the whole spectacle, a round of applause from the by-standers amidst tears, relief and laughter...

I could write a very sincere second rate romantic movie...

Hmmm...

Anyway, the first time I entered an airport as a passenger, or rather "a guest" as my airline preferred to refer to us as, the possibility of anything exciting and romantic seemed remote... With the flight late by over 30 minutes one early December morning, I had to settle into one of the chairs in the waiting area incharge of my luggage as well as my father's while he went away hunting for something to occupy/entertain him...and he sure does have a talent to generate entertainment, which is a whole different blog all together...rather a book...

So, I'm sitting there, looking at the skies which decided to have some clouds over just that day after over two perfectly clear scorching weeks and also at the family with the troublesome kid, the young couple, the old gentleman catching up on the news while the lady is trying to set her strappy grandson's wildly curly hair straight with him nodding in sleep every once in a while, along with keeping an eye out for my father so he won't do anything embarrasing, while managing to read a couple of pages of the bulky book I was lugging around, when something struck me... the airline that my father and I were travelling by, of course had very well turned out women in bright eye catching uniforms as hostesses, but the men they employed were strikingly goodlooking as well... Right from the man at the gate who helped me unload the luggage from the taxi to the pilot of the aircraft... The women seemed to have been created at an assembly line with identical heights, hair-length, complexion or maybe it was just my imagination although I didn't care much for the women, the men held most of my attention...I swing that way, you see...

Finally after around an hour of more delays and announcements, we were ready to board... I walk through what seemed like a ceremonial canopy towards the tarmac, stopping to stare up at pleasant handsome faces while going through the formalities and procedures of getting into my first plane ride...

I climbed into the bright red bus taking us to the aircraft, clutching my boarding pass in one hand and my bag in the other, I take one of the few empty seats next to my father, when suddenly my father realises a good friend of his is on the bus, about to board the same flight as us... So, like any well-behaved child, I gave my seat up to the elderly gentleman.

In the scramble to get up, I shoved my boarding pass in to my bag carelessly and frankly didn't think the boarding pass had much to do after I'd gotten this far... I was wrong... I didn't realise you needed it to 'Board' the plane... so I'm trotting off when another of the extremely goodlooking employees I was earlier talking of, asked me for my boarding pass and I didn't have it... And I couldn't find it!

"Oh! You need that?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"I got past the security and everything. That man at the entrance checked it"

"But I'll need to see it now, to board you"

"I can't find it now! I think I've lost it! I had it a minute ago! It was just here!"

Here I'm starting to panic... What if they don't let me on the plane? Will my father leave me behind?

I was more worried about my father's wrath than anything else...

I thought I'd dropped it on the coach, or worse, on the tarmac...

The next moment the tarmac is swarming with security men, flight attendants, cleaners, all the help they could find to look for my elusive boarding pass... with the real cute security incharge barking instructions in code into his wireless set, the crew in readiness, the entire flight is kept waiting just because of tiny me...

The flight attendants taut with tension, sweating buckets, on the brink of breaking into tears, trying to confirm that I Was on the list, yelling Lima-Echo-Kilo-Hotel-Alpha into his handset was just too exciting for me... I stood there enjoying the show, grinning and giggling away, while my father, thoroughly embarrassed was utterly clueless for once!

After scrouging through every place I'd stepped foot on in the airport, a defeated FA asked me to check one more time in my bag... So, there I am with the contents of my bag, which consisted of months old coffee bills, chocolate wrappers, used face tissue(I do not like to litter), flowers from temples, candles, et cetera spilled on the tarmac me squatting next to it and rummaging through it, as you often will see me if you know me... Resigning myself to the premise that the Pass was one of those things which mysteriously disappear never to be found again, I prepare myself to be denied my first flight and more than a earful from my father, when I flipped through my book one last time... and There It Was!

With Surprising nonchalance I flicked it out, "Oh, Here it is..." and handed it to the by now very exhausted flight security incharge... I looked into his brown eyes which could have turned me to cinders if his job didn't require him to be polite to me... With obvious effort he gave me a smile and led me into the aircraft where strangely I was expecting a big round of applause by the rest of the waiting passengers as I walked down the aisle to my seat...

It was one beautiful experience for me soar above the city, and watch my shadow cast way down below on the changing landscape...

Although I had to face much embarrassment at the hands of my father and brother who take far too much pleasure in pulling my leg and put up with being called "Boarding Pass" for several weeks thereafter, I believe I had my moment in the airport... the one I was so fascinated with...Not in the same way that I would've liked it to be... But I still did have my very memorable yet embarrassing "15 seconds of fame" (rather undue attention) story... :)