2: My Uncle's First Flight

 


My late wife, Malati's father—my uncle—was a great lover of travel. He had retired as a teacher from a lower primary school in the countryside and was eagerly awaiting an opportunity to fly. A golden opportunity soon appeared: I was sent to Bombay (now Mumbai) for a week of administrative training, fully paid for by the government.

My daughter and her husband were living in Bombay, having moved into their flat just three months after their wedding. We planned to visit them, so my wife and I were both ready to go. Then my uncle declared that he was coming too. He immediately rushed to Kozhikode, ready to use his special senior citizen discount. Since he also wanted to see the children, we three booked tickets for the Indian Airlines flight from Kozhikode to Bombay.

Two days before the trip, my uncle came to stay with us. We bought fried banana chips and sweets for the children from  Sweet Meat Street. The flight was at 9 a.m., and everyone boarded the plane at Karipur (Kozhikode) Airport.

The air hostess demonstrated the safety instructions. My uncle, only used to verbal communication, asked if the crew were mute because they used sign language.

Ten minutes after take-off, the beautiful girls in air hostess uniform arrived with a sumptuous lunch. Since my uncle is a bit of a foodie, his attention was completely focused on the meal. But he immediately ran into a problem: how could he eat without bumping the mouth of the person sitting next to him with his elbow? It was the typical difficulty of sitting in an economy class seat. Anyway, after a while, my uncle and his daughter started eating the food as comfortably as if we were eating at home.

Suddenly, the cabin crew came to clear the plates and leftovers, announcing that the plane was about to land. They took the utensils away.

In short, my uncle enjoyed only the food on that trip. He was used to chatting and talking with fellow passengers and couldn't bear the silent, 70-minute journey. He firmly decided that the return journey would be by train. While I was busy with my training, my uncle spent his time touring the city of Bombay with my daughter's husband.

The return journey was indeed by train. After happily chatting with other passengers for 36 hours, we finally returned to Kozhikode.

 

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