THE FIRST FLIGHT!!!🥳🥳🥳

First times are always special. First word uttered, the first step taken, the first day of school, ..... and so on.  In this line now joins my first ever flight!!!🎉🦴🥳🥳

Dec10,2023

India to Abu Dhabi

IST to GST

Flying across the time zones...✨✨✨

How whimsical it sounds... Thanks to the movies and soaps, I had visualised a flight to be spacious and spotless, peppered with posh elegant people who hardly open their mouths. But when I entered the flight it was an expectation Vs. reality sort of scenario. I entered through a congested entrance, treading on the passenger boarding bridge, with people almost pushing me from behind. I couldn't help but wondered if it was how a flight would look. It seemed like a colossal shuttle which could accommodate as many people as a double decker bus could do. 

I was puzzled and asked if the movies had just been falsely portraying flights to be extravagantly sophisticated.

"Lately all the flights are trying to cut down on the sophistications to tally the loss due to the pandemic stoppage. It includes the increase in number of seats and suspension of the refreshments provided during the journey. Even the seats have become more congested.",  answered my husband matter-of-factly. 

That made sense. I could connect the dots when I was served an ice cold Veg role. The thick rimmed role base and the stale veggies stuffed inside made it perfectly unfit to be eaten. That showed the plebeian ways the flights had chosen to manage the prevailing economic crisis.

However it couldn't put a stopper to my enthusiasm. The entry was frantic but the journey was smooth. I was given a seat in the first row next to the window. As we sat, the air hostess asked us to keep all the luggages either on the overhead cabin or down below.

Being a first timer to fly, I had been warned that there wouldn't be any entertainment as the phones should be in flight mode. That prompted the bookworm inside me to grab a book to read during the journey.

"So... madame has planned to read this book now? My husband started jokingly, as I pulled out the book which I had exclusively ordered to be read during my first ever flight journey.

It was so intimidating that I pressed the book back into my bag sheepishly and spread a plastic smile on my face so that he couldn't get the air of my annoyance. 

After what seemed some fifteen minutes, I heard an indistinct voice over the intercom.  "The flight is about to take off", alerted my husband.🤩 "Oooohoooo...." It was that exciting. To intensify my curiosity, he went on instructing..." Look.. look there. The view is something not to be missed!!", (as if I would miss it 😁) "Oh..yes it's indeed!", said I, with a child's curiosity. I thought there would be a heavy jolt that would get me off the seat as the flight takes off... How dramatic!!! Actually, there was of course a mild jerk  that I felt something lurching in my throat for a split second but turned normal after that.  The view was exhilarating.. the huge buildings started to wane into tiny glittering dots, the dark clouds hanging like giant cobwebs up above the sky... I turned speechless for a while but of course as the flight continued to ascend everything looked one as same— a pitch dark mass.  

In fact my husband was right.. from the very moment the flight took off, the couple of air hostesses kept the passengers engaged. At least the newbies like me. The journey wasn't too lingering to read a book. Soon after the confirmation from the flight crew's intercom, they started with the warmest way of welcoming the passengers and were going on and on instructing about fastening the seat belts, using the life jackets "in case of emergency". The worst thing was, they did that both in Hindi and English. It seemed they delivered it more like a reflex than as a scripted one. 

After that they did something which I couldn't make out— barricaded the pathway, slid open one of the drawers on the wall, pulled out a big cardboard box, unboxed that with elegance and taddaaaa... It was food to be served!!! For the next 20- 30 minutes, they went on serving the food to people in person. There was also a buzzer sort of thing to be pressed in case of any needs. That made their work more tedious as people started pressing that so often. But nowhere in those five hours I saw them showing long faces or getting nagged. "It comes with experience?... may be not!", I debated to myself wondering.

The food really was a disappointment. Even a foodie ME found it unappealing that I just stopped with the coke that was served. After all I was lucky enough to have had a food of my choice in the airport before boarding. 

Hours elapsed magically. It was a sheer mix of emotions... Leaving family, native and worst of all the organic me but to explore the unexplored, to kickstart a new chapter, to widen my horizons.... All these thoughts muddled my mind and I dozed off as the light had already been turned off. 

"The flight is about to land", someone whispered in Hindi. The intercom started hooting too. The lights turned on, announcement came to release the mobiles from airplane mode, "Passengers are requested to......" started one of the air hostesses. 

---End of the journey ---