To release your seat
belt, lift the upper portion of the buckle…
‘I always get depressed to see these wrinkly old ladies reciting the instructions, why don’t they hire young ones?’ frowns Ashutosh.
‘Air India you see, never spares money for young chicks.
Instead, will get tons of cosmetics to decorate these old shabby ones’ I say
‘for the first time I attended the instructions, not the beauty!’
‘Yeah, as if the plane is gonna crash! Avoid it, I’m
sleeping.’
Oxygen and the air
pressure are always being monitored. In the event of decompression, an oxygen
mask will automatically appear in front of you…
The old airhostess recites the instructions. Ashutosh has drifted
off. And quite oddly, I’m listening to the instructions with caution.
A life vest is located
in a pouch under your seat or between the armrests. When instructed to do so,
open the plastic pouch and remove the vest. Slip it over your head. Pass the
straps around your waist and adjust at the front…
The air knob above
me is jammed. It’s an eerie kind of dampness around me – I feel claustrophobic.
The temperature control is functioning abruptly–sometimes it is distinctly cold
and at times uneasily warm. “Technical Glitch”, is what they mentioned the
reason for such inconvenience. Ashutosh is snoring like a wild boar; I wonder
how can a human being sleep in such an uncomfortable climate.
We are heading Delhi
to attend a wedding ceremony of our school friend. I still remember how
ambitiously she dreamt of getting married, right since we were in school.
Classmates getting married, and I still pointlessly wonder what exactly my
calling for life is?
Someone said me –
'Do what you think you can do best! But make sure it ought to be something
unique and saleable.’
True that. The
quote ‘do what you love’ has gotten obsolete by time. We, the people, the job goers, the bread
earners, never have the tendency of thinking out of the box. We need to get a
job and earn a living. No fooling around. Surely do what you love, but make sure
you can earn from it, depend on it – thrive on it. Hard fact. But if we take it
with a different perception – haven’t we forgot to take risk? Take a chance
instead of being safe and unhappy?
Suddenly I feel a
jerk and come back to reality from trance. Quite often I contemplate such
deeply. And end up doing what most do. Fall in crowd of millions alike. I hope
someday something will make me step out of that crowd and stand apart.
‘Sir, please tighten your seatbelt. The weather has turned a
bit rough, you might experience jerks’ says the stewardess.
I take the belt
straps and try to assemble them. I hear a distant thud, which makes the
aircraft twitch for a second. Then I hear another thud – this from not so far –
and again the plane jerks. It makes the coffee on my tray table spill out of
the cup. What the hell?
I look out of the
windowpane. It’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I see absolutely no traces of
sunlight. How is this possible?
Thick layer of cloud surround us. I
could see lightening. As if it’s happening few meters away from me. Whenever it
occurs – in an uncanny way – it sends chills down my spine. The oxygen masks
falls down in front of us. The plane sways violently in the air. Aashu wakes up
in despair.
An old man gets up
from his seat and starts swearing at the crew to the peak of his voice. Another
jolt – he falls off his feet and gets hit by a hand-rest right on head and lies
flat–unconscious–on the floor. I instinctively unbuckle myself and try to get
up and help the man to his seat, is when another massive jerk throws me off my
feet right on the window-pane – on my nose. It starts bleeding. I try to stable
up and in no time, a sharp, thick ray of light strikes the aircraft’s left wing,
right in front of my eyes. It catches fire.
It’s a state of
conundrum. I here people scream and cry. The old airhostess pulls off a life
jacket and re-explains how to use it. The groans and moans sides through my
ear. It makes me numb. I don’t understand what goes on. Desperation of mayhem
is all I feel. All I reckon.
The plane, by now,
is tilting off on one side. We hold anything that comes across. I could feel
the warmth. Warmth of the fire, that burns in front of me.
I clench my tray-table so tight that the edges cut through
my finger. The captain comes on board. And I see the most ghastly sight of my
life.
He takes a
backpack, wears it, opens the exit door and jumps off. We are on are own now. I
pull the tag below my seat and fetch out the life jacket. A man punches my gut
and snatches it away from me. I drool blood. Dark. Thick. Red.
We are falling down
with the highest of intensities. The fire has almost reached the outer surface
of the passenger compartments. I slap Aashu, who’s crying his wits out, ‘pull out life jacket below your seat!’
In a savage blast
the entire compartment blows off in to space, leaving behind burning flesh and
metal. I realize. I’m in agony. And Aashu is gone. Forever.
I can’t feel my
left hand. Even, I can’t see it. I try to open my eyes but couldn’t. It stings.
I’m hanging on my right hand – which I can’t feel above my wrist. I again try
to open my eyes. I see vaguely. My legs turned upside down due to the immense
intensity with which I fall. I see my death approaching. Clear Blue Sea.
I’m in anguish – mental, more than physical anguish. I’ve
surpassed the threshold of pain, beyond which it cannot be felt. I’m numb. A
sharp burning piece of metal detaches from the propeller, slits through my
shoulder and gapes deep in to my collarbone. Blood oozes in a sharp stream.
I don’t even try to
free myself from the aircraft from the hand that is entangled to a strap that
holds me from falling free. I close my eyes. And sob.
Beautiful memories
pass by my eyes. My first karaoke performance where I sang ‘Kabhi aana tu meri gali’ and just pulled it
off, my car ride in the Himachal when I precariously zipped my uncle’s car on
the hills of Shimla, and plunged in to a ravine and came out alive, beautiful
faces of my family, friends and that one girl I can never stop thinking about,
my first kiss – on a lazy winter afternoon behind the couch at her place – and
how I screwed it badly. All the sweet aspects that made my life’s worth flashes
by my eyes in that very moment. As if I saw a beautiful movie in just a fraction
of second. I decide, it can’t end this way. I open my eyes again. The
white linen shirt that I’m wearing has almost turned entirely red. I scream in
pain. My throat aches. I scream again and vomit blood that vanishes in the air.
I see the same man
who punched me, hanging on the other side of the aircraft that is intact,
struggling to wear the life jacket – my life jacket. In no time his struggle
for life finishes and he falls off – on me. His left hand shoves off my face
and pulls me down with an outpour of force. The strap on my right hand releases
and a backpack falls on my face. The same kind of backpack, which the captain wore,
before jumping off board. I clench it against my chest with all my strength.
I’m in air. Falling free.
I try to pull up my legs to hold the bag
against my torso, but it looses my grasp. I struggle to hold it with my right
hand, which sways above my head, I pull it back and somehow slid my right arm
through one of its strap. My shirt tears away in the gust of force with which I
fall. I try to put my left arm through another strap; I couldn’t. I don’t feel
it anymore. I can see seashore, which appears to be frighteningly close. I pull
off the only string that dangles out of the front compartment of the backpack.
It shoots open in
to a beautiful rainbow colored parachute.
I feel another jerk and open my eyes to
a scene that has robbed my heart for an entire lifetime that is yet to come. I’m
alive. I’m at Pehelgham. Kashmir it is.
And a dream that was.
