Blog entry: 27th April 2017: Flight to India
I must admit that I haven’t found the time to connect with you, dear readers, from the time I flew to my homeland from Manchester on the 27th of April. The flight was interesting, as were my flight companions. On the first leg of my Air France flight, I flew in a smaller airplane run by AF’s partner Flybe. It would take us over England and then over the Channel to Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport in just over an hour. I sat in a window seat. This flight had 2x2 seats, so I had just co-passenger. He was a giant of a man, around 40+ with a simple English name that I can’t remember now. He and I got to talking, mostly about a GPS app that he was constantly studying on his iPhone. It seemed to be like any Maps display, only, much more detailed and multi-coloured. It reminded me of my school day maps with physical contours of the land, etc.
He told me that this was an open app that one could get on both Apple and Android devices, but its accuracy was underpinned by the defense sector. It cost a huge amount of money as it was highly detailed. If I am not wrong, it costs nearly GBP 500-600 to buy the maps on this app! I was stunned. I wondered why he needed this app. He told me he was a trekker who climbed hills alone, and he needed to know exactly where he was if he ever got lost!
As we touched down at the Charles de Gaulle airport, we parted ways. My luggage would arrive in Mumbai directly. I was walking towards the right gate for my connecting flight. I met, quite by chance, a young woman who looked Asian/Indian. We began chatting. She was Jerlin. Born and brought up in Mumbai, Jerlin is a Keralan-descent trained nurse who had reached Paris from Ireland where she had begun work in the past year. We stuck together while awaiting our flight. She told me this was her first holiday to India after her joining the Nursing force in Ireland, and that she was going there to attend a family wedding. Jerlin was a bubbly young woman who kept laughing. She was a very good listener too. Her luggage was loaded with gifts and chocolates for her entire family.
Our flight to Mumbai departed on time, and it would take us over 7 hours to fly this distance. My seat companion was a Gujarati IT person called Mehul. We shook hands and spoke to each other. As the plane cut the distance, we chatted away. He has settled in Toronto, Canada. He told me he travels to India nearly once, sometimes, twice in a year. Happily married and with kids (I can’t remember how many), he was an extremely nice person.
Once the seat-belt sign went off, we both got up to stretch our legs. We met a young Bengali woman of Indian origin named Benazir who, like us, had got up to stretch.
The two of us and she struck a conversation near the steward’s service area (which is also where we had our seats – viz. Mehul and me). Our friendship, casual though it was, grew slowly, and we were chatting away for an hour or more while other passengers came and went past us. We then met Benazir, a Bengali woman who was based in Berlin, where she was pursuing a doctorate in English literature at the Free University of Berlin. She had a remarkable story to share, and both Mehul and I were engrossed in her telling it. Presently, who should come around to visit the loo (which was right ahead of our seats) but Jerlin. She and the three of us were now a quartet, and we continued to chat for another hour or so. It was a great thing. The stewards, one of them a smart Frenchman who was jovial and very helpful, gave us space to continue to stand in a tight group and continue to hold the conversation.
Eventually, we parted and returned to our seats when the stewards announced a snack service. Outside, the skies had turned dark as we were flying due east from Paris. We would arrive at half past eleven in the night at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. From here, Jerlin and I would go to our respective homes, Mehul would fly onward to his home in Gujarat, and Benazir, to her home in Hyderabad. We promised to stay in touch.
Our baggage safely retrieved, I then hired a cool cab and reached home at a little after half-past one in the morning. It was now the 28th of the month. I would sleep after a bath and tea. The next day, after my 3-4 hour nap, I would begin my Indian vacation.
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