Maiden Flight Journey !!!

I am not sure, how much excited I was for visiting London but yeah, I was really excited to board a place for sure. Everything started on Saturday night 27th Feb. I have been to Mumbai International airport some n no times, bidding goodbye to some senior or batchmate or other. We just used to flock around, do some chit chat and then finally shout and wave at the person getting in the airport. The person has invariably waved back with one hand and other pushing the trolley. So the same scene happened again and I hardly could feel that this time I was the person who gona get in and wave at the flock. Some good bunch was available to see me off and I was pretty touched by the enthu of the people. Thanks to Arjun, Anil, Sachin, Ravi Shankar, Vijay, Parul, Dilip, Madan and gang for making me feel special.

Whatever, I struggled to get the trolley moving as there was some brake funda there but Sachin helped me with it by suggesting to push harder. Its only after an hour I realized that the brake gets free by pushing the handle bar and one gotta keep it pressed when moving !! Siva - the experienced helped the novices - me and Aditya with filling various forms and I actually got bugged with the time it took to finally get into the flight. God, there is q for everything in life !!!

I heard that a van comes to pick the passengers and takes them to plane and then one has to climb up the mobile stairs to get in. I was expecting some good view of the plane during this process before I board. Unfortunately nothing of that sort happened. I just kept strolling one gallery or the other and finally realized that the current lobby is the plane itself. Phew, what a bad entry !!

Though tired being up whole night, I still tried not to sleep and check some glimpses outside. After much efforts, could finally spot some planes on the hanger. I thought finally the take off would be interesting. Well yes, indeed it was. The plane turned like a small car and then accelerated on street hawk speed in fraction of seconds. I could see from the window some tail of another plane and I was really wondering if both were on the same track? Its only when we were in the air that I realized that it was the wing of our own plane !! Man, seems all the episodes of Gopal in Inscrutable Americans on which I was mocking on, are quite possible ;-) And yes, when this Gopal was in air all of a sudden, I was really really excited to see Chennai from the top. I was one seat to the window seat and could have pretty good view. All lights everywhere and the plane was really inclined catching with the altitude. Soon, nothing was visible due to darkness and I was expecting some amazing sunrise. To my dismay, the hostess asked to shut the windows down and they even switched off the lights and forced us to sleep :-(

I slept for most of the time and ate, drank and watched movies for the rest. Most of the time, I had only the map channel on my screen as I really wanted to figure out where I was and where I am heading each moment. And yes, the GPS map was pretty informative and helpful. Anil reminded me several times that there would be his Guntur on the map too and when I spotted that, I surely got reminded of him. And he didn't forget to ask me that did I see Guntur, after I reached here !!! Phew, pretty good excitement !!

It was pretty exciting to know that I was at 36000 feet height and it was -70 degree centigrade outside !!! I wondered the strength of the window glasses and wondered what if we are exposed to the outside climate !!! Wondering about a lot of other things, waiting for the window sheds to open, shuffling between the channels available at the scene in front of my seat .. I slept. Woke up many times in between to see people around me sleeping and slept again. One gorgeous Air Hostess came and gave me lot of stuff to munch and I gobbled everything. Breakfast was really awesome and so was the lunch and the drinks.

When she gave me a small bottle on asking for a small white wine peg, one long pending mystery solved that these White people do not drink drinks neat, as I used to wonder on the sight of them drinking straight from bottle. They are already very diluted stuff. Hummm, now I know. The wine worked !!!

finally when the map showed that we are about to land, I opened the windows caring less about the illumination it was causing inside the plane !!! Wows, that was the scene I was craving and waiting for !! Ocean of clouds, like some cotton spread all over. I just got spell bounded and struck my eyes outside, lost in reverie. Probably we were much before the time and hence we made a big oval circle before reaching airport and luckily my window was on the inner edge !!! The butterflies in my stomach told me each time the plane was taking turn or changing altitude. And I invariably looked outside.

We were much above the clouds at some 10,000 feet, circling at the Heathrow Airport again and I was noticing the cloud patterns. Suddenly we started climbing down the height and I saw the mesmeric scene of entering into the clouds layer and then crossing it within a few seconds, leading to a clear view of city !! That was the best view, that of the London city, busy highways with cars speeding up, big lorries and mostly, the green fields in proper rectangular shapes !!! I just clicked the scene in my mind and am sure I gona never forget that. Wish could use the camera too, didn't know whether I could.

We kissed the ground and suddenly flew high again, back to the 10,000 feet!! Although people around appeared scared, I was enjoying the another take off experience. Captain announced that we missed the exact path by few inches and they did not wish to take any risk. Thanks to the pilot.

Finally we landed and came to halt within no time. Then we were just moving like inside of a car and I saw some n no of planes at the hanger !!! One old fat lady wished us "Nice stay" and Sharat guided us to the the egress. I read somewhere "Welcome to London".