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!!).
