Rantings of a frequent traveler

I have finally understood… Every single Indian is a CEO! The completely indispensable kind, who has to be reachable 24/7, on his/her mobile of course. I used to get intensely angry at people keeping their mobiles on during flights, despite repeated requests from the flight attendants, but now, I know… You can’t mess with important people.
Especially with the housewife type, which has to call home the minute the plane has touched ground to instruct the maid to start cooking the dal. Or with the bespectacled, middle aged gentleman who picks up the phone while boarding a 5 am flight, looking as if he is striking the deal of a lifetime (but instead giving instructions to the wife on when to go and pick up so and so from uncle’s house).

The pits was a flight from London to Mumbai, when an elderly man sitting next to me kept screaming in the receiver while the plane was picking up speed on the runway (a moment when everything, absolutely every electronic device has to be off). I couldn’t help but glare at him, so he asked the person at the other end to hold, and earnestly explained: “Madam, that’s exactly what I am trying to tell them – to stop calling me now as we are taking off!”. What on earth could I have replied to that?!

Flights to Delhi are the worst. Almost all mobiles on board are on, all the time, and at the moment we touch ground, a myriad of loud beeps and alarms resound from every seat. The CEOs take on a serious expression and start checking their messages, and invariably a thunderous voice from somewhere will say: “Haaaaa? Kon hai? Haaaa! Just landed! … Haaa? Nahin, Rinku teek hai… Uska blood pressure todha sa high hai… Haaaa!” All essential information which has to be conveyed at this very moment.

The same stands when exiting the plane. The CEO tribe is in such a hurry, that seat belts are unbuckled at the very second the plane’s tyres touch the runway. So the beeping of mobiles is complimented with click clack clack from everywhere. The race is on! Everyone around me is on the edge of their seats, ready to pounce. As soon as the plane comes to a stop, the smartest ones jump up, and if their fellow passengers occupying the aisle seats are still wasting time sitting around, they don’t mind continuing to stand in all sorts of contorted positions, waiting for their chance to fling themselves at the overhead compartments to collect their precious hand luggage. A small battle of bodies and wills ensues (all while talking on the mobile), and finally everyone is standing, breathing in each other’s necks, waiting for the doors to open (I agree, it’s not a good idea to be left behind, locked up into an empty plane just because you waited around).

When we can finally go, the rule is ‘gentleman first!’. The competition is so intense, that’s it’s actually a bit dangerous to try and edge your way out of your seat – your feet may get smashed under a trolley, pulled along by some man obviously in a hurry for his kidney transplant operation. My question is: why all this struggle, when we will all end up in the same bus, going to the same terminal, waiting for the same luggage belt to start screeching and rolling out our luggage? But logic doesn’t seem to be the order of the day, and as I almost get pushed out of the bus (I have the audacity to stop to pull out my trolley’s handle and block the way of five cardiac specialists on their way to save someone’s life), I just remind myself… We are all a nation of CEOs.