The country across 4000 miles and its memories…



Part 1 – All that I did up and above the world so high.

I neither was nor am an IT person who craves to go up in the ladder by kicking and killing the so-called ‘peers’. I was and am a normal, happy with what I do, software engineer who does not believe in working late hours to impress the manager. 
I did not beg, fight, threaten or bury my manager alive to go to the Onsite. It had to happen, so it did and there I was, all set to start off on the journey that taught me and brought me to my senses in many a ways.
The above was to make the background clear of any doubts.
For a pampered kid like me who has never known what it is like to travel alone, this was one of a kind experience and every single day of that 6-months trip is intricately etched in my heart.
The flight journey was around 23 hours!  The airways that my company had generously booked for me, took me all around the world. I am still arguing with my mom that I saw the Great Wall of China on my way and she says that she knew that I sucked in Geography but not to this extent. But I really did and no one believes me :(
During the first half of my journey I had this co traveler who was a smart surgeon. He was on his way to Sweden. Smart because, the moment he saw me, he found out that it was my first time in the plane. Not that I was revealing too much of my ignorance. Atleast I thought I didn’t.
23 hours and you wouldn’t believe if I told you that I did not flip a single page of a book or listen to a song or even watch a movie that the screen before me showed. So, it was 23 hours of nothing and nothing at all except sleep.  My transit was for nearly 6 hours and I talked to my parents and fiancé for 2 hours. The rest of the time, you should know what I was doing. Sleeping right near the right terminal gate  :)
Do not ask me why I slept so much. I am still trying to figure out.
I finally boarded the second flight after the girl at the mike called out for the economy-class passengers in her. Her English was more weird than her over-done face.  
Second half of the journey was..hmm..read on..
Now, Imagine a small, short girl with a scared look on her face being awkwardly packed, squeezed, jammed and sandwiched by two not-so-small guys. You imagined? Yes, the girl was me!
All the way from Thailand to London I remained the source of entertainment for those who saw how I struggled between the fat brothers.
And, hey don’t blame me, I really had nothing to do but sleep with this kind of an atmosphere around me. So yeah, that’s apparently what I did up and above the world so high!
Few other things I did in between my sleep are –
1)      Going to the loo. Not because I HAD to. But because I wanted to see how things work without water up above the sky.  *Winks*.
2)      Eat that thing they called ‘food’.
Please note - Neither the air-hostess nor the food was good. I had to habituate with both for the moment.
3)      Look outside the very small window and get stumped totally.
Sometime back it was so bright and all I saw was pure white.
Now it looks pitch black that it makes me forget what I saw some time back!
Not a great poem, I know. But that’s exactly how I felt. Either I was sleeping too long or the flight was taking me all around the world. Or was it probably both?

  Finally, when I got too tired of sleeping, I woke up to realize that it was 7 00 pm in the city below     which was named London and I was to de-board in the next few minutes.
After smiling sweetly at the not-so-small brothers (Believe me, that smile had no sarcasm in it!), I managed my way out and grabbed my 23 kg luggage from the conveyer after a wait that felt like forever.
   There they were, my friends happy to receive    me and my big bags (after all they now had a scape goat that laughed for all their lame jokes!!).