How many ways are there to miss a flight?

Remember the time I had to bring home a lotus from Pune? Well, here's the story of how I almost didn't go to Pune at all, but finally did...

Sunday morning. The time when you’re supposed to lazily roll over in your bed and close your eyes again. Especially if it’s the first weekend in months that you’ve been back home. But then again, the universe has other plans for the way my life should be.

I had a flight to catch at 11.45 (on a SUNDAY morning – I can’t say this enough) and a pretty complicated way of reaching the airport which is so far away that it might as well be in another city. I’d been smart – I’d looked up the timings of “Vayu Vajra” on the website 2 days before. 9.20 am was burned into my consciousness. (And to get to the appropriate bus-stop at 9.20 am, I had to leave home at 8.45. Why do all my weekends look like weekdays now?!?)

So a taxi arrives to pick me up from home and I set off, with my dad following on the bike. (He didn’t need to come back in the taxi). After getting stuck in a traffic jam (on a Sunday morning, can you believe it?!), we got to the stop at 9.15. Five minutes roll by – and no bus. Atleast, not the bus I wanted. I could’ve gone anywhere in the city by bus, EXCEPT for the airport. (How do these things happen?!)

A helpful conductor (from a bus I don’t want) decides to help us out – turns out, the bus doesn’t run on Sundays. (I knew it was a bad idea! God intended everyone to stay at home, in bed, on Sunday mornings!) That was the signal for my dad to start glaring and grumbling. How was I to know that buses get to sleep late on Sundays, when I don’t?!

So the helpful conductor tells us to go on to the next stop along the road, from where airport buses set off every 30 minutes. I load the suitcase onto the bike, and Dad and I move it to the next stop. Sure enough, there’s a bus there, airport-bound. Hurrah! I get in and ask what time it’s leaving (and I’m hoping the answer is “Now” ‘cause it’s already 9.45), and the bus driver says 10 am. Cue mini heart-attack. Ten?? That means I’ll reach the airport at 11.15, he tells me. I breathe a little. That’s not too bad for a 11.45 flight, right? I look into the ticket again, just to reassure myself. And it says “Departure – 11.30”. The heart-attack makes an encore. (When did that change?!)

My dad redoubles his glares and departs, clearly leaving me to stew in my own mess. Parting words to a daughter who’s off for three days?? “If you miss that flight, you’re dead.” (I can’t believe he said that – looks like someone’s been watching too many movies of late, huh? It’s a flight, Dad, the worst that can happen is that I miss it, and have to stay in Bangalore. Sorry, did I say worst? I meant best. Pune is ridden with swine-flu. But more on that later.)

I get into the bus and put on my best puppy-dog face, and inform the conductor that my flight is at 11.30. He smiles. I make some more sad faces. He agrees to leave at 9.50. Score!

There’s a middle-aged uncle in the seat behind me. “You should plan to reach there one hour before the flight”, he informs me. Thanks, I needed to hear that. Again, I want to reiterate, how was I to know that buses get a lie-in on Sundays?! Somebody explain this to me, please. As far as I’m concerned, if it’s up on the website, then they should follow it, Sunday or not. (Humph.)

9.50 am and the bus is off. Finally. Maybe I will go to Pune after all. So I open my book and settle down. It’s a Sunday, how long could it take? Smile.

Apparently, it can take pretty long. At every stop people want to load themselves and tonnes of baggage onto the bus and then proceed with long-winded, hugging good-byes to each other. Don’t these people realise that my career is at stake here?? And this bus, which should be moving like its ass is on dragon-fire, instead crawls like a flobberworm through Trinity Circle and MG Road. (Yes, I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.)

Crawl, crawl, crawl. Fret and fume. 10.17 and just past MG Road. Come on, bus, I have faith in you.

Frantic calls from my senior. Yes, I’m on the way. What, do you think I WANT to miss this flight??

More people getting in. More luggage getting in. Come on, bus. It’s 10.53 and we’re at the Hebbal flyover. My senior messages me. Apparently, they’ll hold the boarding pass for me till 11.05, max. God, if you’re listening, I am out of bed and worrying myself to death over a stupid plane (on a Sunday morning, no less). Now, it’s not that I doubt your existence per se, but it would be nice to see a miracle… right about now. If it’s not asking too much, please can you make this bus sprout wings?

Minutes are ticking past. 10.55 am. How can there possibly be 15 more kilometres to this airport?! Why on earth do they call it the Bangalore International Airport, when it’s evidently nowhere near Bangalore??

10.58 am. Come on, bus. And now, it’s a race to the finish. 11.05 looks a lot closer when the watch is on 11.02 and there’s 3 more kilometres.

Airport! I saw it!!

11.06..!! And I’m the first off the bus and hurtling towards the doors, receiving a call from home en-route about whether I made it. (Not yet, Dad, but almost!) Ticket and ID proof already in my hand. The security guard waves me through. The pretty girl at the start of the winding passage to the Jet Airways counter gives my running form one look, and unhooks the barriers all the way to the counter for me. Double score!!

I slam down my ticket and ID proof, and a second pretty girl at the counter [I almost ask her whether it was in their contracts that they have to wear make-up an inch thick. She’d’ve been nicer-looking without it. Then it dawns on me that I had a flight to catch, so I shut my mouth] convinces the baggage loaders not to leave my suitcase behind. “Just one more baggage,” I hear her saying to someone unknown baggage-authority. I flee up the stairs, receiving another frantic call from my senior. (I’m on the way upstairs!)

Why, why, why does there have to be a line the X-ray thingy now?! My flight leaves before all you people! Does no one realise that I need to be on that plane?!

I stand in the line, clucking impatiently. (God, who AM I?). Laptop? Take it out of the bag, please, and put it in this tray. WHAT? We didn’t do this the last time! Why now, why now??

And I’m through, and stuffing the laptop back into my bag. My senior’s standing at the counter and waiting for me, and I do a repeat of the hurtling that BIAL witnessed downstairs. My boarding pass is examined, and now we’re walking down the passage into the plane.

I hear footsteps behind, and look around. “Don’t worry, you’re not the last”, grins my senior. Thanks, buddy. There’s the gift the universe has for me, to make up for a bus that gets to lie-in (on a Sunday morning), when I don’t.

I find my seat, and settle down (after struggling to find some space in the overhead racks to stow this bag of mine). Two minutes later, we’re taxiing down the runway. Jet Airways welcomes you on the flight to Pune, and despite everything the universe had lined up for her, Nappinai Raghavan is safely on board.

**********
I could be designing bridges. Bridges so beautiful that they could be in museums. And I could design those museums. But instead, what am I doing? What has my career come to? A two-story Stetson, with outdoor dining on the brim. It’s a sick cosmic joke.

- Ted Mosby, Architect

Lotus Notes

Jejuri is a beautiful place, around 40 kilometres from Pune, and well into the ghat section. It’s a pretty big factory the client has there and very idyllic, too. It has lots of buildings all over, clean and shiny after the rains, and was surrounded by greenery. In fact, it was an extremely well-maintained garden.

And so it happened that, walking around the factory after lunch on Day One, I noticed a line of stone goblets (with the cup portion wide and shallow, if you can imagine that), and all of them had lotuses growing in them, blue ones to boot. It was a very pretty sight, and this is what I mentioned to my mom and dad, later that day when they’d called.

Mom: Blue lotuses?! They’re really rare!! Bring one for us!
Dad (in the background): Bring two!!
Me: What?! No way.
Mom: Why not? Just ask them to pack it up for you and bring it home with you in the plane!
Dad (background still): Ask if they have “Bird of Paradise”.
Me (stubbornly): I will NOT.
Dad (having snatched the phone from Mom): Do you know what a “bird of paradise” looks like? We had one, remember….
Me: Yeah, it was orange and purple…but I can’t bring -
Dad: Yes! Exactly! The flowers are orange and purple, and it looks like a flying bird. Ask them if they have that and you –
Me: It never looked like any flying bird to me…
Mom (hollering in the background): Get some hydrangea plant also, no, from there. Ask that gardener if they have hydrangea…
Me: I cannot ask them for any hydrangea and all. I came here for some work –
Dad: Ask, di, what does it matter? Bring it for us and come no…
Me: I really can’t, Pa, what will I go and ask them? How can I ask for some plants and all, you tell me. And where are you planning to keep it in the new house, there’s no garden. I thought Amma is giving away all her plants?
Mom (back on the phone): No, we’ll get one uruli. We can put some rocks and all and grow this lotus in it.
Me (losing track of what I’m agreeing to): Will it grow in the uruli if I bring? They have it in some big shallow stone pots here…
Mom: Yes, yes, it’ll grow…and ask for some hydrangea…
Dad (in the background): Orange and purple… -
Me (firmly): Good-bye.

That very evening, the lotus was preying on my mind on the car ride back home, and so I asked Jiten, the finance guy there, whether they could give me one. (That was the extent of courage I plucked up, I couldn’t go as far as hydrangea and all.) He agreed, without seeming to doubt my sanity, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it wasn’t going to be that weird, after all…

I ditched the idea after a good night’s sleep (How weird would it be to carry a lotus onto the plane?! I wasn’t doing it, no way…). On the usual afternoon call to my parents after lunch:

Mom: So you got those two lotuses? (I have no idea when it became two)
Me: No, ma. How can I ask for plants and all…?
Dad: Put it in one cover with water and just carry it with you…

And the lotus was back in the ball-game…

So I found Jiten, and we went in search of the gardener in the steady drizzle that was falling. The gardener atleast didn’t think I was weird, though now Jiten definitely did. He just yanked one out of the pot and gave some instructions in Marathi, which I got Jiten to translate for me…

Gardener: (something, something in Marathi)
Jiten: Just keep it in a big shallow bowl, and the leaves should float, he says…
Me: Doesn’t it need soil?
Jiten to Gardener, and the reply: … (Something else in Marathi…)
Jiten (to me): No need of soil, he says…
Me (eyeing the lotus suspiciously now): Is he sure it’s blue? It has to be blue…
Gardener: (pulls open a bud and its blue…)
Me: What about on the flight? Will it survive? I have to take in a cover…
Jiten (after passing on the message and receiving some assurances): He says for 2 – 3 hours it will survive…
Me: Ah OK. Can he keep it in a cover full of water for me?

That evening, when we left, we loaded our bags into the dicky of the cab, and Jiten hollers (with a wide grin) across to the people in the security lodge at the gate, something that sounded like “Arre, Madam ki jaad...” (Should it be ki or ka or ko? I’ll never get this language.) It was something sarcastic, anyway. And thus began the journey of the lotus and I…

It sat at my feet in the car through the 45 km ride back into Pune, and sat in the car all through dinner at a restaurant. When we got back to the hotel after dinner, I remembered the part about the “big bowl of water and its leaves should float...” For a split second, I actually considered asking the front desk for a big bowl from the kitchens, but I caught the doorkeeper’s eye as I walked in with a cover full of water and lotus, and promptly ditched that idea.

Brainwave! I would stopper up the basin in the bathroom and float it there! And I could remove it in the morning when I had to brush, and put it back in till the time came for me to leave for the airport in the afternoon. It seemed quite a good plan to me. Where were the flaws??

Lurking out of sight, it turns out. I filled the basin and put in the lotus, and happily settled down in front of the TV. Ten minutes later, I thought I’d check on its health, and it’s a good thing I did, ‘cause I found that the silly basin couldn’t hold the water indefinitely and had already run dry. Cue experiments.

I put the plastic cover in the basin first. Filled that with water. Now put the lotus in the cover. Genius, though I say so myself. Somewhere at the back of my mind, a little voice was perking up about the trouble and tension this lotus was bringing into my life. I punched it once and knocked it flying. The deed was done and I didn’t need any lectures about it. The lotus and I were in this together now.

Next morning, halfway through my shower, it struck me that if the housekeeping staff found a dying plant in a cover in the bathroom, they’d probably throw it away. Over my dead body, I thought and packed it up in the cover of water again. I placed it firmly next to my suitcase. The message was loud and clear: The lotus is with me.

I spent half a day worrying my way through debtors, and not wanting to be late for yet another flight, I left the office at 3 for a 5’o’clock flight. This time, I thought, this time, I’ll show those silly planes…

Rushed to the hotel, picked up my suitcase and lotus, checked out, and now we’re cruising along in a cab to Pune Airport, the lotus and I…

We got to the airport at 4 pm (who’s not late now, airport?) and confidently waltzed up to the security guard at the door.

Security (giving the lotus a “look”): Blahbitty, blahbitty… (This language will be the death of me, I know it)
Me: Eh? I’m sorry, I don’t speak Hindi.

He just laughed rudely at the lotus and let us through. What a pig of a man. It’s not that bad, come on. Just a plant, right??

Then we encountered a second security guard, who again said a lot of long things out of which I caught – “Liquids not allowed.” Really?? Why on earth not?

Then he told me if I send it with the luggage its ok, but not in the cabin. No way. I wasn’t sending the lotus with the baggage; I’d have got back some squished leaves after the flight. Resigning myself to the worst I asked “Bathroom?” Lotus was gonna be on reserve till we got home now. The gardener had said 2 – 3 hours…it was bound to be ok…

I entered the ladies room, past the gawking eyes of a bunch of cleaner ladies outside it (it’s WAY cleaner than the one in BIAL, btw) and was about the pour away the water.

“Kamal?” One of the cleaner ladies had followed me inside and was asking about the lotus. I just nodded, and mimed at her, asking if I could pour away the water into the basin. She agreed and stood there, gaping at the lotus some more while I did so. (It’s a plant. Just a plant, for heaven’s sake. Why create a sensation?)

I walked through the security check for baggage, getting a lot of looks about the plant, but thankfully, they didn’t stop me from taking it in. I stood in line for check-in (4.10 for a 5 pm flight, what up?) and then came a bolt from the blue. “Indigo regrets to announce the delay of Flight 6E 105 to Bangalore, due to late arrival of aircraft from Delhi. Scheduled time of departure is now 1730 hours”

What were the odds that I’d be early and the plane late?? This couldn’t have happened on the flight to Pune when I was late, oh no. It had to be the time when I’m early, and the poor lotus is struggling for its life, tied up in a plastic cover without any water.

I reached the check-in counter and sent my suitcase down the winding track to whatever mysterious place luggage goes. I hauled up the lotus cover and dangled it in front of the girl at the counter and asked “I have this. Can it come in the cabin with me?” Full credit to her, she didn’t even bat an eyelid. She just asked me to put a baggage tag on it and see if the security guards let me board the plane with it. So the lotus had a baggage tag put on it and we made it through security…

We had to sit and wait for an hour for our plane, the lotus and I. I sat in the airport, and it sat at my feet, and we both worried about whether it could run on reserve till we got home. (I was still getting looks, but now they seemed to just bounce off me. I could get used to being famous…:))

Finally, one bhel-puri and twenty-five pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows later, the plane was here. The lotus and I walked through the boarding pass check with a confidence born of practice and entered the plane without a second thought. Again, the lotus sat at my feet and now I didn’t get so many looks… I had a window seat, and could efficiently shield it from the public glare.

Halfway through the flight, I noticed the cover misting up from the inside. Uh-oh…The worrying started again, and noticeably intensified with this message from the captain – “There will be a slight delay in landing due to turbulent weather conditions” Perfect. All this, when the life of a lotus is hanging in the balance. (In fact, I was so busy thinking of the irony of this, that I forgot to be air-sick. It’s an ill wind, I guess…)

Finally, Bangalore. Good to be back in your familiar drizzle, old friend.

We made our way out of the airport anymore, and looks from people wasn’t uppermost in my mind. We were, once again, in a race against time. Could the lotus survive till we got home?

I got into my bus, and tucked away my suitcase in a safe corner right in front and placed the lotus on it, where it wouldn’t be in danger of getting squished. I could stand there and keep and eye on it. Well, I would’ve, if the conductor hadn’t had a burst of unexpected chivalry and led me halfway down the bus to a folding seat. The lotus was now effectively hidden from my view, by two suitcases which could’ve held my entire wardrobe. (Sitting down, I swear they were taller than me)

The bus ride was surreal. I kept trying to duck my head around the suitcase and catch a glimpse at the lotus (it had looked a little yellow when we’d got off the plane). I bent lower and higher, but just couldn’t catch a sight of it.

A new worry arrived at this juncture. What if someone picked it up and walked off with it? Not after all we’d been through together. I took to closely watching everyone getting off the bus to see that they hadn’t stolen the lotus.

Finally, an hour and a half of craning my neck later, the lotus and I got off the bus and into the waiting taxi. It was definitely withering now, or seemed so to my anxious eyes. Half an hour more in the cab and we were home.

“Take this lotus and put it in water. I think it’s dying.” My first words on reaching home. (Normally, I’d’ve said “What’s for dinner? I’m hungry”). “The leaves should float.”

My mom put in a tub. The leaves didn’t float. She put it in a bucket. Still no floating. She filled the bucket almost to the brim, till only one leaf was stubbornly sticking out. (We’re going to lose that one.)

“The gardener said the leaves should float.” (Me)
“Are you sure it’s blue?” (Mom)
“Yes, he showed me…”
“Mr. Nair (a neighbour) paid 1250 for a lotus yesterday, the gardener in Lalbagh said to put some sand at the bottom of the basin…”
“This man said no need of any soil… And make the leaves float; he said they have to…”
“Woof!” (Mowgli)
“Shhhh…can’t you all talk quietly, I’m sleeping here!” (My sister, from upstairs)
“You brought only one? I told Olga (another neighbour) that you’ll bring two, and I’ll give her one…you could’ve brought a pink one also, no” (Mom, whispering)
(No reply except a very dirty look from me. I just spent 24 hours worrying about the health and sanity of a blue lotus.)

It’s in a bucket in the garden now.

If it doesn’t live now, after all this, I’ll never forgive it.

Update: The lotus has safely moved with us into the new house. Alive and flourishing in a plastic bucket as of this morning.