Twist in the Tale

For 100% professional reasons, I packed my bags and started off to Amritsar from Bangalore. Of all the places in the country, Amritsar!!! Oh My God… Why couldn’t Punjab be in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu or at least in Kerala? Who the hell has placed Punjab there, even beyond Haryana? I guess somebody just hates me being with my son when he appears on the stage as Spiderman! This trip is the culprit, I am gonna miss his fancy dress competition! Only to smile at the mail from Citi bank every month end, what all I sacrifice in life…!! 

Totally disliking the trip, I boarded the flight and forced myself to sleep, turning on the “Do not disturb” panel. In fact, I meant “Dare not to trouble me; I might pull out your intestine!” Zzzzz, I went to sleep teleporting myself to my son’s school auditorium. 

I woke up listening to the chaos in the air craft. Gentle men and women were seen very grumpy; they were being little less gentle. They were constantly murmuring; but nothing made sense to me as I just got back from the Spider Land. Suddenly I hear, “Ting Tong… Dear passengers, Kripaya dyan deejiyee. We are landing into New Delhi airport in few minutes” “Huh? Holy Cow… I got into the wrong train, I mean flight…!! What am I to do now?! I missed Spiderman too… L” …Madam continues, “This is due to some technical problems and we shall resume our journey to Amritsar in a short while. Hope you are enjoying your flight. Dhanyavaad”

Oh No..!! How I hate this! I knew something bad would happen, cos the first guy I saw this morning was George Bush, wickedly smiling at me! Newspaper could have had Mahatma Gandhi or at least Julia Roberts instead! In the next 45 minutes, I could only find faults at everything. There was this little baby crying; I felt like sealing its mouth with a milk bottle. I got even more irritated when I saw its mother who instead of finding means to lower the volume of her baby was merrily blabbering non sense over the phone. There were people cribbing about hunger, painful aircraft restroom, laptop and mobiles running out of power, delayed meetings, weddings going unattended, and so on. However, I felt mine was the biggest of all the problems, “I couldn’t get photographed with my son on his first ever fancy dress competition!!” 

People shut their mouth when the aircraft started flying again. The most looked at thing was the watch for the next couple of minutes. “Ting Tong…” She cleared her throat and announced, “Dearest passengers, Welcome to Jaipur. We had almost reached Amritsar when we realized that for the next two hours the place is still technically unfit for landing. Hence we are here, in the Pink City of India. Hope you are enjoying your flight. Dhanyavaad.”

“Aree re are ye kya hua…” I started singing to myself. That is the mantra to control my anger and frustration. I also started advising myself, “This is not the worst darling... The flight could have been hijacked by Ossu baby and team. God saved; that did not happen!” 

“Tring Tring…” My mobile rang.

“Hello, Am I speaking to Shalini?”
“Yes… Who is this?”

“How you doing?”

“I am almost on top of the world. Grrrr… Who is this?”
“This is Amrita. We have already exchanged couple of emails. Since I did not see a reply from you, thought I shall get it done over the phone”.
“Can we speak…”
”My questions definitely are hilarious that you would love to answer them!”
“But I am…”
“Alright… here I go. To warm up, let me start off with rapid fire round of questions.

“errr…”

“Which is your favorite holiday destination?”

Hell… Here I am stuck in this stupid aircraft for hours and somebody wants to know where I wanna go holidaying! “Pass…”

“Oops, ‘Pass’ is not an option. There should be at least one dream destination, right?
“Shall I answer it at the end?”
“Fine. Tell me, how is it for both of you, I mean for you and Vijay to work for the same company?”

“There is nothing fancy about working in the same company”

“Isn’t it lovely to be with your sweet heart even at work?! You will never miss him!!”
“Give me a break…”
“Sorry to say; I was looking at a very sporty employee to be interviewed… looks like I caught up with the wrong person. Bye!!”
“Beep... beep… beep” The phone got disconnected and somebody just added oil to the already burning fire!

Now, the twist in the tale - This is NOT my story, I just slipped into my colleague Amrita’s shoes; this post is about her aircraft odyssey.
What was my role then? ...it was me who asked her in the middle of all the mess, “How romantic is it, to go to work daily with your beloved?”

10% of it actually happened... the rest 90% is as a result of my boredom. As I had nothing else to do this evening, I let out my imagination wildly wander!