CRASH LANDING

The flight did land, and landed well by i wouldn't say that to describe this part of my life...

-60 Degrees

Inside the aircraft the airhostess took her position and went "in case of a water emergency- you will find a life-jacket like this under your seat, wear it above you head and...." so on. At this point i should confess about this thought that crosses my mind every time i board an aircraft" This aircraft is gonna crash!" Yes, I don’t know why but this shit scares me every time I take my seat and click close those useless seatbelts around my waist. Now she had finished the demonstration and tucked those yellow, worn out, lifeless life-jackets into her briefcase. I was looking into the eyes of my co-passenger who was by now convinced that there is no threat whatsoever and the life jacket will save her life in case of an emergency. "What do we do in case of a 'non-water' emergency? I thought to myself, I always wanted to ask the hostess the same , but I dint want to scandalise the other passengers, so I stop with thinking and eventually I found the answer while watching 'AIR CRASH INVESTGATION' on National Geographic, the answer was simple, in case of a non-water emergency, throw the life jacket out of the window and see who hits the ground first, you? or the life jacket?' Beep, Beep!! "Good evening everybody this is Captain. Sanjeev Singh, with your co pilot Rajiv Sang...." the announcement woke me up from my short nap, i didn’t even know when i dozed off or what put me off to sleep , probably that damned instrumental version of the song "sailing". I've been listening to this particular music and only this song on every flight of mine. Is it like the airlines don’t have money to buy new music, or the tape got stuck in the flights music system some decades back and the Germans forgot to train our flight engineers on how to change tapes? Anyways I am happy it wasn’t one of Aerosmith's records that got stuck like 'leaving on a jet plane, don’t know if I’ll be back again". "We are flying at an altitude of some 30000 feet above msl and the outside temperature is -60 degrees Celsius" the captain continued... - 60 degrees!! i exclaimed inside my head
… to be continued

AIRBORNE

The flight took off from the runway, I was airborne almost instantly and lost in the night sky. Below , the shimmering lights of the Chennai city twinkled like celestial bodies of outer space. I saw row houses, bungalows, huge buildings constantly growing smaller as I went higher into the warm humid darkness of the troposphere. I have seen these lights before, yes, they took my breath away the first time, later frequent official air travels got me used to this breathtaking sight. Especially when the airlines dropped their tariff to 2/3^rdsof their price like chicken vendors dropping chicken prices during the bird flu.But this time it felt different, uneasy, like i'am seeing this for the first time, felt like i left something behind, something very important, and these lights were making it difficult for me to find it. I remember smiling with gratitude at my friend at the airlines ticketing counter who upgraded me to the business class for the same tariff. Inside the aircraft I thought to myself... When you are taking a flight to get away from yourself, how does it matter if it’s economy or business class! I gave a damn…
To be continued...