Flight to Cochin

So here I am, day 3 at the aryavaidyasala. My husband just left or Bombay a couple of hours ago. I watched him get into the cab that was to take him to the airport and all I wanted to do was bawl. Waaaah, don’t leave me here. I want to come home with you. I hate school… Instead I smiled and waved out to him.

My treatment has started today, a day or two later than I had hoped it would. Friday afternoon – by 2 was when we expected to reach this place. Instead, what hapened was – fog in Delhi – and so we reached this place at 7.30 p.m. when all was shut for the day. Why were we called and told early Friday morning that our flight that was supposed to take off at 11 a.m. was now scheduled for 12.30 p.m.? Fog in Delhi. And then 12.30 became 12.55 p.m. by the time we reached the airport – delayed due to traffic near Sion, thanks to fog in Delhi. At 1, the time changed to 2.45 p.m. and Indian Airlines kindly took us all over to the Orchid for lunch. Why was the paneer at lunch not as soft as it should have been? Fog in Delhi. And why did the board, at 2.45 p.m. still say 2.45 p.m. depature when none of the Cochin passengers were even allowed in for security check? Fog in Delhi? Oh, that was in the morning, the flight from Delhi has landed and we will take off for Cochin in the next half hour.

So we cross security and walk towards the ground floor and see this highly ambiguous sign flashing. IC 165 operating Mumbai / Calicut. Uh? As it happens, Indian Airlines had decided to divert our Cochin flight to Calicut – after making us wait for 4 hours – and then slipped it to us sneakily without any actual announcements. And from Calicut? Oh, don’t worry. We have arranged for surface transportation. i.e. a bus to take you on a four and half hour road jouney over bad hill roads.

And why? because of some story about crew waiting in Calicut and something else about the crew onboard the flight since morning. So passengers get off at Calicut. And gussa kyun kar rahe hain – Cochin toh aapko pahuncha rahe hain na hum? (we are making sure you reach Cochin, then why the anger?)

For the first time, I saw a random crowd of passengers mobilise themselves into a group to protest. Either the flight goes to Cochin or we don’t board the plane. IC first sent “ladies” (mananger) to deal with the angry crowd. Madam, aap ladies hain, is liye izzat se baat kar rahe hain. When ladies’ charm did not work, IC sent a heavyweight toughie to negotiate. And finally, after much discussion and shouting and bargaining, the flight took off at 4.15 p.m. on a compromise solution – Mumbai – Calicut and then Cochin.

During such community bargaining events, it is interesting to see the way people neatly place themselves into categories for our ease of observation. There are the leaders; the one calm guy with the legal mind, and perhaps experience, taking charge of the discussion, a few others giving him support. There are then the supporters, with no strong point of view of their own but in general agreement with what seems to be the flavor of the moment. Harmless mostly. There are the clueless, with a complete bewlidered Dhritrarashtra, yeh kya ho raha hai bhai? look on their face… The nice thing is to see their faces brighten when someone does tell them what is happening – and they come up with accha, yeh flight Calicut jaa raha hai? Phir Cochin flight kab niklegi? or some such highly relevant question to which no one has the answer.

The most interesting – my personal favorites – are the hecklers – those who stroll into the centre of the group all of a sudden, their tea break over and start shouting basis the last word they hear – some sort of antakshari for the harassed air passenger. Calicut? one of them thundered into the face of the ladies’ – You go to Calicut. We will go to Cochin. Vamsi and I placed ourselves firmly in this group – and as heated argument, bordering on fist fight went on one one side, quiety set about forming our own coterie on the other. Our demand was simple – we want to go to Trivandrum, we will not get into this flight bound for Calicut.