Hey all, I know it has been a while since I had peeped in to share my experiences with you! Well, here I am back again to share with you, yet another awful experience during my first travel alone from New York (JFK) to Dubai (DXB). 1st of April, 2010, was the D date, the date for which we had booked my tickets to DXB to meet the best people in my life- my parents. And I had been counting each day till then, just to make sure that I do not miss the date ; which had the least possibility. 1.5 years away from everyone had seemed like 15 years ! How much did I long to meet everyone. But this feeling has another side to it too- Kichu and I have never stayed apart from each other all these days. So staying away from each other was tough on both of us too. Due to that solid reason, I wanted to take the morning flight on 1st, which was cheaper too, so that we would avoid the direct sight of temporary parting. Well, he had another perspective to it; he wanted to see me off, and hence he chose to book me seats in the night flight, which was slightly more expensive too.
A week ahead of we booking our tickets, Kichu had to fix an official travel plan to Salt lake city, that too for April 1st- and guess what the flight was at 5pm, while my flight was at 11pm . Yes, you guessed it right,now I was supposed to see him off and wait at the airport for another 6 hours to board my flight and, I should also reach the airport by 3 pm. Imagine how bored I felt?
I was left with no other choice than waiting at the airport, till Kichu left, till the check in counter opened, till I drank 2 large cups of coffee, till I ate a dinner combo of fat thick noodles, till I finished my 2 novels, security checks , roaming around to find a place to sit and finally, board the aircraft! It is not as easy as it sounds! :)
I desperately wanted to sleep in my flight, as firstly it was night time and secondly, what do you think one could do in a 14 hours flight? 26 hours by train is way far easier and better than even 4 hours in flight. What else can you see from your window except clouds and clouds only? How long can you watch movies in your TV when you have watched most of the movies atleast once or twice! Luckily when I entered the flight and got to my seat,I found that there was only a lady sitting one seat apart from mine on the 3 seats - I was on the aisle and she on the window with the middle seat empty. She was in her early 50s, dark complexioned , wearing a gray mega sleeved T Shirt and white capris with a white hat over her head-God knows for what! :) . She turned her head and smiled at me- She was a Desi- holding an American Passport, which meant she is an American citizen now but earlier- an Indian like us!
Both of us started discussing of how we could share the middle seat for us to sleep, and so on. The flight doors closed and I started browsing the inflight magazine to see what all movies they were playing that day. Disappointed on seeing the list but happy about the fact that there was one seat empty next to me, I tried to engage myself on the Menu card to see what they would serve me that night as I was really hungry. That was when someone just called me from behind with an " Excuse me please ?". Wondering what was happening, I turned back just to find a short stout man asking permission to enter in to sit in the middle seat. All my smile vanished in seconds. Of all people, a man had to sit between two women, 14 hours, that too a fat man , a really fat man who would definitely need 1.5 seats to sit properly! OH MY GOD.... what would I do all those hours? Too many thoughts started passing my mind, when I was disturbed again by a crying noise. While praying to God asking for no more further aftershocks of the quake that just happened, I turned my head to see what happened- well, it was a real after shock......the man was screaming something in Farsi or Urdu or something and was counting the beads in the rosary he had in his hands. That was when I realised that the flight was taking off and he was praying to GOD. All the people surrounding our seats started staring at me as I was on the aisle seat. I sat quiet as if I heard nothing and silently prayed to God to not give me too many after shocks.
I immediately took out the earphones from the pouch and started watching the movie " Blind Side". I adjusted the volume to the maximum that my ear drums could bear, as the screaming rather praying around me had not ceased. Few minutes later, the stout man who was already sitting on seat - wait let me tag him as Mr.X as it seems quite offensive to address him in any other way- called me and asked me how to use the TV and earphones. After my wonderful tutorial, I noticed that he was a man in his early 40s, was really fair, had a fat face with a thick moustache and he wore a blazer as if he had to host a program in the flight. He definitely looked like an Asian, and I assumed him to be either an Afghan or a Kazakh. I got back to my Movie mode after hearing his "zank you"!!!! It was only the first hour of the journey that was calm. After a while, X started sleeping. He snored,snored ,snored and snored so much that even the noise cancellation earphones proved ineffective. Wonder why do I have to hear too many snores in my life! :) Snoring became unbearable when he started moving to my seat and started putting his legs on me. I moved more towards the aisle making every air hostess smile at me and say sorry each time they hit me.
When it had become totally unbearable, I woke him up and asked him to sit properly. With a "sorry" , he readjusted himself towards the other side :) . To say the truth, he did the same on the other side and guess what, the other lady did not even react! Wonder how can people be so tolerant- or may be even she was in deep sleep! Well, as you know that good times do not last long, it did not take too long for him to turn towards me and call me up with another "excuse me?". This time he wanted to remove his coat off and he wanted more room to do it, which meant he had to stand on the way and do it. I made way for him and waited till he was done with his coat, sweater and Shirt removal, and he walked inside in just his undershirt, with yes of course his pants :). I am not being offensive now, but the truth was it felt awkward, he smelled real bad, guess it had been days since he had cleaned himself up! I really wanted to change seats or get out of the plane or run around to somewhere or what not! But what option do I have in a flight that is carrying 308 passengers in its 310 capacity? I continued watching movies and in about few minutes, X started pushing the pouch in front of my seat where the magazines would be placed. I waited patiently just to make sure that he did not hit me. But as I had expected, he started kicking me too. I had to wake him up again and he said a Sorry! I felt bad at myself to be frank. But at the same time, I was guilty of waking up a man who was sleeping well. But then, I woke him up because he did all these right?
After few minutes of only snoring, he suddenly woke up and he told me that he was not able to sleep properly and that he wanted to readjust himself. I asked him to carry on with what he wanted to do and guess what he did? He stood up, facing the seat, placed his knees and hands on the seat, and head on the head rest and slept with blanket all over him. I was dumb struck to be frank. I do not think even kids would sleep so in a plane or how can a grown up feel like doing that in a flight? Well, I would not dare to do it even if I was alone. Lots of adjustments, snoring, eating , pushing and kicking went on for 10 hours. I kept on looking at my watch every 5 minutes , just to recalculate the number of hours I had to bear X more. Time passed by real slow, worst in my life, and all I did was wait for the flight to land, as I was totally hapless.
Hardly 2 hours were left for the flight to land, when they served us dinner. They had only 2 choices in their Menu-egg or veg. When it came to X, he asked for chicken and she gave him Veg. He opened it up and found that it was veg. He called her back and she verified and apologized for her mistake. After she had walked about 10 seats behind us, he called her up again like " shshshshsh I need water". He screamed to her all the way from where he sat. She ran back to him and apologized again, which is when he asked her " Which country are you from?" . She smiled and said " England". It was very much evident from her accent that she was an English. As if he was happy to have known that she was English, he settled down to eat his food, while the the lady, at the window seat questioned him asking ," where are you from?"
He smiled and said, " Afghanistan"
Window lady , "Are you a "T"? Why do women there wear purdah? Why do they wear Burqah? Look at Indian women, they are so advanced."
My mouth went wide open, I slowly looked around and turned towards her, which is when I saw that his mouth was wide open too. I wondered how can such an elderly lady be so senseless. He started justifying themselves.. I turned to both of them and said, " This is not a real good topic to discuss". I felt like I was a real sensible matured girl and wanted to pat myself.
But the lady did not stop there, she went on and on. I decided not to involve myself in it. I made sure that I did not listen to a word, by wearing my earphones. After a while, she pulled my hands and asked me a question in which she wanted my opinion to continue her discussion. The question was simple- why do the women there cover themselves up when each man can get married to 6-7 people each girl being half of his age?. Well, this had been something that I have always wondered. But this was not the right situation to discuss. The sensible person in me pulled back and made me reply like this- " Each religion has its own beliefs and customs. We are none to question as we know nothing. All we can do is respect each other and be peaceful". Gosh, I was surprised by what I had said. I felt great for what I did and this time I was successful in keeping her mouth shut! :)
After a while of silence, he asked me if I was from India. I smiled and said , " Right. Is not that obvious?". He smiled and said, " Yes, Thanks for supporting". I smiled back. In deed a good deed right? He switched on his TV and started watching an old hindi movie. He called me up and asked me if that was Amitabh Bachchan. I smiled and said, " You got it right". Then he mentioned his love and respect towards India and Indians, how he had learned Hindi and so on. Now this was a different Mr.X :) he spoke well and sensible too. Time flew real quick and it was time the flight had started its descent. He quickly took out his rosary and started screaming again. X was interrupted by the window lady as she wanted to know what he was doing. He did not respond and he continued his crying prayers. In a while, the flight landed and he asked me what my name was. When I told him my name, he said this , " I know that it is an Indian God's name. Nice Name." Quite astonished by how much others know about India and how little we know about them, I smiled, but we were interrupted by the window lady , saying that her name was Kumkum and that it was funny. We smiled and I asked X what his name was. He said it was Amaan Rasheedi. By bidding farewell to my fellow traveller companions, I stood up from my seat to take my baggage from above. Quickly, he pushed me and came out behind me and said, " I will take your bag for you". He asked me for my bag, verified it and lowered it down for me. He quickly took his wallet from his pocket and showed me a picture of a girl, and said that she was his wife. A very pretty lady. We smiled at each other and I ran quickly to finish off my passport control just to collect my luggage and meet my parents outside.
It is easy to wait for years and hours when you are far, but when you are almost there, you just cannot wait any minute longer. The moment I got out of the airport, I saw my mother waiting for me. We rushed to the parking, my father was already there. We loaded my luggage, I took off my jacket and like as usual, I started talking, firstly about Mr.X and my awful sleepless journey to DXB.
A week ahead of we booking our tickets, Kichu had to fix an official travel plan to Salt lake city, that too for April 1st- and guess what the flight was at 5pm, while my flight was at 11pm . Yes, you guessed it right,now I was supposed to see him off and wait at the airport for another 6 hours to board my flight and, I should also reach the airport by 3 pm. Imagine how bored I felt?
I was left with no other choice than waiting at the airport, till Kichu left, till the check in counter opened, till I drank 2 large cups of coffee, till I ate a dinner combo of fat thick noodles, till I finished my 2 novels, security checks , roaming around to find a place to sit and finally, board the aircraft! It is not as easy as it sounds! :)
I desperately wanted to sleep in my flight, as firstly it was night time and secondly, what do you think one could do in a 14 hours flight? 26 hours by train is way far easier and better than even 4 hours in flight. What else can you see from your window except clouds and clouds only? How long can you watch movies in your TV when you have watched most of the movies atleast once or twice! Luckily when I entered the flight and got to my seat,I found that there was only a lady sitting one seat apart from mine on the 3 seats - I was on the aisle and she on the window with the middle seat empty. She was in her early 50s, dark complexioned , wearing a gray mega sleeved T Shirt and white capris with a white hat over her head-God knows for what! :) . She turned her head and smiled at me- She was a Desi- holding an American Passport, which meant she is an American citizen now but earlier- an Indian like us!
Both of us started discussing of how we could share the middle seat for us to sleep, and so on. The flight doors closed and I started browsing the inflight magazine to see what all movies they were playing that day. Disappointed on seeing the list but happy about the fact that there was one seat empty next to me, I tried to engage myself on the Menu card to see what they would serve me that night as I was really hungry. That was when someone just called me from behind with an " Excuse me please ?". Wondering what was happening, I turned back just to find a short stout man asking permission to enter in to sit in the middle seat. All my smile vanished in seconds. Of all people, a man had to sit between two women, 14 hours, that too a fat man , a really fat man who would definitely need 1.5 seats to sit properly! OH MY GOD.... what would I do all those hours? Too many thoughts started passing my mind, when I was disturbed again by a crying noise. While praying to God asking for no more further aftershocks of the quake that just happened, I turned my head to see what happened- well, it was a real after shock......the man was screaming something in Farsi or Urdu or something and was counting the beads in the rosary he had in his hands. That was when I realised that the flight was taking off and he was praying to GOD. All the people surrounding our seats started staring at me as I was on the aisle seat. I sat quiet as if I heard nothing and silently prayed to God to not give me too many after shocks.
I immediately took out the earphones from the pouch and started watching the movie " Blind Side". I adjusted the volume to the maximum that my ear drums could bear, as the screaming rather praying around me had not ceased. Few minutes later, the stout man who was already sitting on seat - wait let me tag him as Mr.X as it seems quite offensive to address him in any other way- called me and asked me how to use the TV and earphones. After my wonderful tutorial, I noticed that he was a man in his early 40s, was really fair, had a fat face with a thick moustache and he wore a blazer as if he had to host a program in the flight. He definitely looked like an Asian, and I assumed him to be either an Afghan or a Kazakh. I got back to my Movie mode after hearing his "zank you"!!!! It was only the first hour of the journey that was calm. After a while, X started sleeping. He snored,snored ,snored and snored so much that even the noise cancellation earphones proved ineffective. Wonder why do I have to hear too many snores in my life! :) Snoring became unbearable when he started moving to my seat and started putting his legs on me. I moved more towards the aisle making every air hostess smile at me and say sorry each time they hit me.
When it had become totally unbearable, I woke him up and asked him to sit properly. With a "sorry" , he readjusted himself towards the other side :) . To say the truth, he did the same on the other side and guess what, the other lady did not even react! Wonder how can people be so tolerant- or may be even she was in deep sleep! Well, as you know that good times do not last long, it did not take too long for him to turn towards me and call me up with another "excuse me?". This time he wanted to remove his coat off and he wanted more room to do it, which meant he had to stand on the way and do it. I made way for him and waited till he was done with his coat, sweater and Shirt removal, and he walked inside in just his undershirt, with yes of course his pants :). I am not being offensive now, but the truth was it felt awkward, he smelled real bad, guess it had been days since he had cleaned himself up! I really wanted to change seats or get out of the plane or run around to somewhere or what not! But what option do I have in a flight that is carrying 308 passengers in its 310 capacity? I continued watching movies and in about few minutes, X started pushing the pouch in front of my seat where the magazines would be placed. I waited patiently just to make sure that he did not hit me. But as I had expected, he started kicking me too. I had to wake him up again and he said a Sorry! I felt bad at myself to be frank. But at the same time, I was guilty of waking up a man who was sleeping well. But then, I woke him up because he did all these right?
After few minutes of only snoring, he suddenly woke up and he told me that he was not able to sleep properly and that he wanted to readjust himself. I asked him to carry on with what he wanted to do and guess what he did? He stood up, facing the seat, placed his knees and hands on the seat, and head on the head rest and slept with blanket all over him. I was dumb struck to be frank. I do not think even kids would sleep so in a plane or how can a grown up feel like doing that in a flight? Well, I would not dare to do it even if I was alone. Lots of adjustments, snoring, eating , pushing and kicking went on for 10 hours. I kept on looking at my watch every 5 minutes , just to recalculate the number of hours I had to bear X more. Time passed by real slow, worst in my life, and all I did was wait for the flight to land, as I was totally hapless.
Hardly 2 hours were left for the flight to land, when they served us dinner. They had only 2 choices in their Menu-egg or veg. When it came to X, he asked for chicken and she gave him Veg. He opened it up and found that it was veg. He called her back and she verified and apologized for her mistake. After she had walked about 10 seats behind us, he called her up again like " shshshshsh I need water". He screamed to her all the way from where he sat. She ran back to him and apologized again, which is when he asked her " Which country are you from?" . She smiled and said " England". It was very much evident from her accent that she was an English. As if he was happy to have known that she was English, he settled down to eat his food, while the the lady, at the window seat questioned him asking ," where are you from?"
He smiled and said, " Afghanistan"
Window lady , "Are you a "T"? Why do women there wear purdah? Why do they wear Burqah? Look at Indian women, they are so advanced."
My mouth went wide open, I slowly looked around and turned towards her, which is when I saw that his mouth was wide open too. I wondered how can such an elderly lady be so senseless. He started justifying themselves.. I turned to both of them and said, " This is not a real good topic to discuss". I felt like I was a real sensible matured girl and wanted to pat myself.
But the lady did not stop there, she went on and on. I decided not to involve myself in it. I made sure that I did not listen to a word, by wearing my earphones. After a while, she pulled my hands and asked me a question in which she wanted my opinion to continue her discussion. The question was simple- why do the women there cover themselves up when each man can get married to 6-7 people each girl being half of his age?. Well, this had been something that I have always wondered. But this was not the right situation to discuss. The sensible person in me pulled back and made me reply like this- " Each religion has its own beliefs and customs. We are none to question as we know nothing. All we can do is respect each other and be peaceful". Gosh, I was surprised by what I had said. I felt great for what I did and this time I was successful in keeping her mouth shut! :)
After a while of silence, he asked me if I was from India. I smiled and said , " Right. Is not that obvious?". He smiled and said, " Yes, Thanks for supporting". I smiled back. In deed a good deed right? He switched on his TV and started watching an old hindi movie. He called me up and asked me if that was Amitabh Bachchan. I smiled and said, " You got it right". Then he mentioned his love and respect towards India and Indians, how he had learned Hindi and so on. Now this was a different Mr.X :) he spoke well and sensible too. Time flew real quick and it was time the flight had started its descent. He quickly took out his rosary and started screaming again. X was interrupted by the window lady as she wanted to know what he was doing. He did not respond and he continued his crying prayers. In a while, the flight landed and he asked me what my name was. When I told him my name, he said this , " I know that it is an Indian God's name. Nice Name." Quite astonished by how much others know about India and how little we know about them, I smiled, but we were interrupted by the window lady , saying that her name was Kumkum and that it was funny. We smiled and I asked X what his name was. He said it was Amaan Rasheedi. By bidding farewell to my fellow traveller companions, I stood up from my seat to take my baggage from above. Quickly, he pushed me and came out behind me and said, " I will take your bag for you". He asked me for my bag, verified it and lowered it down for me. He quickly took his wallet from his pocket and showed me a picture of a girl, and said that she was his wife. A very pretty lady. We smiled at each other and I ran quickly to finish off my passport control just to collect my luggage and meet my parents outside.
It is easy to wait for years and hours when you are far, but when you are almost there, you just cannot wait any minute longer. The moment I got out of the airport, I saw my mother waiting for me. We rushed to the parking, my father was already there. We loaded my luggage, I took off my jacket and like as usual, I started talking, firstly about Mr.X and my awful sleepless journey to DXB.
