Weekend Blast

Last Sunday, a friend was getting married in my home town, Lucknow and till Saturday evening I hadn’t quite made up my mind to go. Suddenly at 9:00 PM when guilt pangs struck, I rushed to the railway station to catch the last train home. I even managed to secure a confirmed reservation. Luck I thought was on my side (for once). But hell it wasn’t not. The birth allotted to me was a side upper in an AC 2 tier coach which in itself is an extremely crampy affair.

Sharp at midnight as if it were an ominous sign a salty stench reached my nostrils. It was overpowering, nauseating and absolutely disgusting. Somebody had farted!
I nearly choked. The AC compartment may be a blessing in summers but it becomes a Nazi gas chamber when people blow their bottoms.
Surviving such incredible odds I reached Lucknow.

Since I had booked myself on a red eye back to Delhi the same night I was in a hardly holiday mood. The day past quickly and soon it was time to head for the wedding.
I really hadn’t been having a great day and I wasn’t really expecting much as well. But hell I was wrong! And this time pleasantly surprised too. The wedding in itself was a short, sweet and a quick affair. The food was what made my head go round. Believe it or not, there were actually 35 different dishes of non vegetarian food!!!

For a foodie like me this was straight out a fairy tale (bad example but it felt like that). There were heaps and heaps and heaps of Galawati Kababs, Kakori Kakabs, Reshmi Kababs, Kalmi Kababs, three different kinds of Biryani, 5 kinds of fish and list goes on… Boy it was some feast!

Good things don’t last forever and neither does the space in my stomach. So at midnight while trying to avoid belching loudly in public (as gracefully as possible), I decided to head home, pick up my bag and get straight to the airport since my flight was at the unearthly hour of three in the morning.

Now Lucknow airport is very unlike other airports. It’s a small port and it’s also international. The whole place is a paradox in itself. Employees there give the impression of being really busy, as if they have the pressure of handling 30 flights an hour (they walk that way). The problem is, they are not that busy and flights land there only once in three hours. Secondly it’s horribly sad on infrastructure. So there I was at the airport trying to check in and look awake at the same time. The only people present were passengers who had come in on the last flight from Jeddah two hours back and were wrapping up their haggling with contemptuous Custom officers.

Ting Ting Dong : Sabhi Yatre krirpya dhyan de, Dubai se aani vali Indian Airlines ki udaan IC 884 char ghante se vilambhet hai… and went on about how truly sorry they were about it. Now since this was an international fight that would turn domestic and then carry us to Delhi, the delay actually translated into five hours. 4 hours late + one hour for paperwork.

I sat on a not very confidence inspiring recliner and watched as a fat lady who sat beside me snored loudly and guffawed at the same time. I hated her very sight for she dissipated any chances that I had of possibly dozing off.
Slowly the sky started lightening as the heaviness of the night lifted. The fat woman still snored heavily.
Mercifully a while later IC 884 landed. I spent the next hour pacing. Two reasons - I knew I’d be late for office and secondly the fat oaf had me on fire.

Finally the flight was announced; we boarded and took off. The Lucknow adventure I thought was over. BUT Murphy’s law. How could I ever forget that?

A salty stench reached my nostrils. …Again! It was overpowering, nauseating and absolutely disgusting. An idoit in the seat ahead had farted!
I choked... While the oxygen was being restricted in my lungs I had visions of picking up the delinquent who burst his tank, opening the emergency exit and chucking him out and then watching him as he plummeted 25,000 feet. (perhaps his internal compressed natural gas might have rescued him)...
I guess I must have passed out (it was that bad) for otherwise I think I might have actually just done it …