An Unknown Journey

I was reminiscing about some of the past events which had occurred and found this one in particular worth sharing. Christmas and New years was round the corner and like everybody I too had planned to spend some time with my family but little did I know that to achieve it I will need to go through a long and unknown journey.

I was scheduled to depart for The City Beautiful from Mumbai on one not so fine morning. The idea was to reach home as soon as possible. However, it was like the clouds had something else planned :P It rained as heavily as it could that day which delayed the captain of the plane to take the aircraft into the air.

I admire this one passenger who was a "Sardarji" (okay no jokes here!) who called the flight steward to ask what was going on. The flight steward in his reassuring tone calmed the guy informing him that the flight had got delayed. The passenger seemed to be Mr. know-it-all and ordered the flight steward to tell the captain that only if he would take this plane off in the air, only then we would be aware of the exact weather conditions and that ground clearance cannot be so sure!! :P Well, the plane seemed to finally get the clearance and we were in the air.

In no time there was an announcement by the captain which compelled me to dismiss my earphones and do some serious listening.

"Due to bad weather conditions we are waiting for clearance to land the plane in Chandigarh. We expect to hear from them in another half an hour else we may have to divert this aircraft towards New Delhi. We request you to kindly be seated and blah blah"

This instantly got me to praying "Okay Not Delhi, It has to be Chandigarh". I looked at the time in my mobile where the songs were still playing through the earphones which were still in my hands. With no option but to wait till the captain gave the second announcement, I decided to continue listen to a few more playlists to pass my time and within no time the second announcement gave the dreadful news that we would have to land in Delhi.

I without delay got my brain rolling onto a thousand thoughts. By this time, passengers had already started quarreling with the flight crew for their flight refunds and travel conveyances which seemed more important at that time than reaching home.

The lonely fresher with me however, to face this situation, was perplexed from within but thought it would be smart to act nonchalant (being in a city like Delhi alone). A passenger sitting next to me seemed to be fascinated by the view through the glass and requested me to exchange places with him so that he could click some scenic pictures through his Android!

Different people react differently to situations and this seemed to be the perfect situation to examine peoples' reactions. :P

In half an hour, the plane safely landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport. In this period I got time to think about the things I will need to do and be safe at the same time.My mother had slithered into me and I knew not to trust anyone just like the way she would tell me all the time when I was a child. It was like the practical application of my mother's teachings were to be done today. :D

Stepping out of the air-craft, on one hand the air-hostess gave us all the sympathetic thank-you-for-flying-with-them while on the other hand a few passengers were arguing about the refunds which held us all back with no option but to ear their argument and see who won.

Getting out of the plane seemed like another journey itself and I was welcomed aboard!

My first step to inform my parents of the entire situation was perfectly taken care of by my dad where instead of me having to call him, I received his call instead asking me whether I have reached Delhi safely. With a few "awww mera beta", he immediately started guiding me what to do. From baggage claim to reaching home, I had prepared a complete "to-do" list.

People in Delhi or when they reach Delhi seem to be very friendly to especially girls being alone or perhaps it's just my perception. Being safe was my priority and suddenly I had become more responsible of myself than ever. This made me completely ignore the help of a drop to Chandigarh, by an old man who instantly saw me waiting for my baggage and claimed to be a policeman and have a daughter of my age. With a "No Thank you", I headed for the refund counter that seemed to be located through some magic door completely invisible to me.

However, with the help of a few security guards, I finally found my way around the airport. Getting a full refund is an easy job when a whole bunch a wailing passengers unite!

With one hand dragging my luggage and the other holding the documents, I felt even a phone call to be a disturbance.

With this job ticked off the list, I hadn't noticed that the door through which I entered, wasn't the exit door and heard an "Excuse me madam". The person happened to be an army guard. This made me look around to see in case I had left anything on the counter and this god's man had been sent to me. In a dreamy world that I was, he simply had stopped me from entering the area.

"Is door se exit allowed nahi hai" (You can't exit from this door)

I looked around and saw that to go out, I would be required to go around a whole bunch of blocks whereas this exit permitted me to go out using just a lift. I immediately started requesting,

"Sir please! I have my boarding pass and my flight from Mumbai got diverted to Delhi. I just need to get out on time in order to catch a Volvo to Chandigarh and reach home. Sir please let me go from here".

With perhaps me being the only one, he thought it wouldn't be much problem. I turned my head to see him and how kind he was. Although I got my way, I had forgotten to observe how armed he was and how I set an example to many others who had creeped up behind my back but yet they weren't allowed to go through the same way. Maybe because they were many in number and were all men :P I without delay, starting smiling recalling the "I'm feeling lucky" on Google. My heart just thanked him for the kind gesture. Even though I could've taken the long route and reached the same airport exit like those of the others, I chose a short-cut by acting weak and all girly. :(

Our country is definitely very kind to girls who are alone :P

My father kept calling me to inquire for updates and I kept telling him accordingly, "Papa baggage claim hogaya" , "Papa Refund lene jaa rahi hu"

So it was certain he would call me up to ask me what next and I would tell him, "Papa refund le liya".

No matter how hard you try to get independent, your parents would never stop worrying about you. Things that I hadn't even thought of were taken care of by my parents. My phone was recharged (My parents somehow knew I never have much balance) Luckily I was responsible enough to charge my phone at the airport. The Volvo pick up point was found out. The Volvo timings were found out. How to get to the pick-up point was also found out! My life had all of a sudden become much easy and my job was just to follow the steps told by my dad.

Making sure that my list had been fully ticked off, I paced myself out of the airport thinking, "Okay, now what next"

I found many buses outside the airport gate which happened to be the shuttle services for passengers wishing to avail the Volvo services. Without thinking I stepped into one of them confirming them to be going the same place I wanted to. The shuttle had a good 2 minutes to hold and on spur of moment, I had become skeptical about my safety as I was the only girl in the bus along with three other males. Without looking back, I stepped out of the shuttle and waited for another one knowing that I still had some time to catch the Volvo.

I decided to give my luck another chance and stepped into the second shuttle where now many passengers had got into feeling a lot safer. The shuttle dropped the passengers to the Volvo pick up points from where I availed the 5 hour Volvo service to Chandigarh updating my father "Papa, Volvo mil gayi".

We say that all goes well that ends well. Well this surely ended well :)