When there was excitement and fun in the air….

HARISH  MONGA

The first journey by air felt scary but afterwards, it is amazing. It has always fascinated me since my childhood. In school days when Physics was one of your subjects, it was taught that the earth continuously revolves around its axis but as to what would be position, of amazing idea in those days, if a person in the helicopter stays in the air, there will be continually changing of places underneath him due to the rotational movement of the earth.

Anyhow, I could not understand at that time until I learned about the flying of planes in the sky, controlled with sophisticated types of equipment to land at a particular place, and I got few chances to travel by air.

It was my fifth journey by air with my better half from Amritsar to Singapore and like earlier, this too was fascinating. Starting from the immigration counter, passing through all the vigorous airport security procedures and down towards the terminal and getting the boarding pass after depositing of luggage duly scanned, the officer at the counter, pointing my gray rather say white – by age or deficiency, I don’t bother but liked and appreciated its originality – said, Sir, are these originals. I said in a lighter tone, yes, you may test even pulling it.

We were very scared of the food items in our handbags which we consumed well before boarding the flight but after about half an hour of flight, everyone opened his bag and enjoyed the home-made food without any hesitation or objection by the air hostesses. While we were repenting of finishing at the airport itself enjoying ourselves as if sitting near the dhaba.

The person next to us was feeling a little upset as his travel agent forgot to mention vegetarianism against the meal option. The mistake was realized but since the air hostess did not have anything vegetarian for him. However, to accommodate, she asked if he could take seafood which is also considered vegetarian. The most wonderful was when he asked to have a cup of tea as it was a short flight of five hours. She did not even serve tea as they don’t have soya milk and normal milk is also considered as non-vegetarian being an animal product.

However, I came to know that vegetarians are of two types. One who consumes cow milk and not meat is classified as an Asian vegetarian and those who don’t take any sort of animal product are called vegans. One has to plan his journey well before boarding. Journey by air is not like a hotel where one could order anything to eat during a flight. One has to be particular, especially during the long journeys to have a choice between the flight foods and traditional feast items.

Frankly speaking, this time the journey with my better half was interesting. However, after her announcement to tighten the seatbelt during the journey, when she casually asked me, out of curiosity, as to at which height the plane was flying. I told her that normally international flights flew at 35,000 ft which comes around 10 km from the earth. She asked innocently, as to why the Aeroplanes fly so high. Since flying low is safer to come down to survive from a shorter height falling from such a height is always fatal. I had no reply to her questions but to pray for the safe landing at Changi airport. But this time, it was fun in the air. Hope to have a different experience during my back journey.