The missed flight fiasco

I’d always remember yesterday’s night – not only because it was so full of jitters with a mix of thrill. The sad part though is that it ended sadly and in the recent light of things created tense moods between me and one of my best friends.

For the past week, I had been totally ablaze to be going to Mood Indigo after two years of planning and plans getting cancelled for some funny reasons. But I guess some things are not really meant for you. Shubham’s plan got cancelled the last moment and Aarti needed to go early, creating too many complications for my plan. Not that I blame them, I could have been gone but fests are meant to be enjoyed with friends and not alone…..

Now that the plans had gotten cancelled, and I had been longing to meet friends for having been away from them for so long, I thought I’d meet Aarti and drop her to the airport. The problems started with us opting for an early morning flight leading to worries about late-night travels. It’s not considered very safe for girls to travel alone especially at night, so I had offered to travel to Chandigarh to pick Dumbo up. It was better than waiting in Delhi and would also have given me time to catch up with her.

Not that I trust her in such matters but this time I did. She was to finalize the plan and I’d just adhere. I had loads of time to reach Chandigarh but I preferred to spend most of it in Roorkee itself. There was always the situation that if I landed in Chandigarh early, I might need to go to her home. Now this is something which makes me real uncomfortable, because these mom’s always have an endless list of questions, which Aarti too realized and her plans might be risked as well because when travelling with friends, you are not always the truest in telling everything to your parents. ;)

So I left quite late and landed there around 9’o clock. According to Aarti’s plan (read her assumption :P), we were to take a bus at 9:45 and land in Delhi in 4 hours giving us loads of time to reach the airport. This proved to be the bane of all miseries as it was only later that we realized that it was possible only if the bus had some jet engines. The conductor started giving all the worries with the announcement of a 4 AM arrival in Delhi given we were lucky enough to get past the traffic jams quickly and the driver didn’t sleep on the way. Too much to digest!!

Now that the damage had been done and it was all upon luck, the start wasn’t good enough. The driver seemed to be in a state of slumber. A group of people had gathered to wake him up and even water had to be used to get him back to his senses. Might seem funny to others but somebody must have had her heart in her mouth. Aarti was giving all sorts of weird expressions and wasn’t speaking much. I guess that what happens when you are too enthusiastic and then realize you might spoil it all because of one foolish act.

We left ourselves to luck and continued on with the journey. To add to our woes, we got stuck in a long traffic jam which seemed almost endless and took 45 minutes to clear and the snacks break which although was a brief one looked like it lasted ages. Aarti got all panicky and I was praying that we just get there on time. Spending the night talking, gossiping, sleeping in all sorts of weird fashions, and tackling the weird drunkard in the seat ahead, we managed to reach Delhi border around 4 o’clock. The milestone still read 33 kms to Delhi. Woah!!! Will we miss our flight was the question in mind. Helpless as we were, we had to wait another 30 long minutes before the bus arrived at the ISBT.

Here starts the thrilling part. Getting down in a rush, I got hold of the first autowalah I saw and asked him to get us to the airport as quickly as he can. He too made out the urgency at hand and promised to get there in much lesser time than we had given him. When you have easy preys, everybody wants to make the maximum out of them and he told us that it would cost 500 frickin bucks to the airport. Although it was a bit too much but then when larger things are at stake, such amounts seem petite.

To avoid any further delays, we hired him. But when it’s not your day, nothing seems to go right. He had to stop for gas and that wasted another few precious minutes. I was cursing the autowalah like anything. But once his vehicle had its diet, its driver’s energy came back too. Cutting sharp turns, passing through inexistent spaces between vehicles, jumping traffic lights, almost having accident twice – the autowalah drove in full swing. A distance of around 30 kms was covered in mere 25 minutes….I am not very good calculations but that’s an insanely high average speed of almost 70 kmph!!!!!!!!!

But this wasn’t the end of our miseries. Once we were inside, we needed to look for the Go Air check in terminal. But it seemed to have vanished. Running frantically from one gate to another, we realized that the small passageway which I was assuming to be the exit actually led to gate 3 through to the final destination. Another few precious moments wasted. There was no time for bye-byes and Aarti went inside in a hurry. I sat there waiting for her call, hoping that I would return alone. But our quota of luck had already been exhausted. I saw a girl in yellow arguing with 2 officials to let her in, only to realize that her fate had been decided.

Arguing, fighting and finally cursing them Aarti came out with a totally dejected expression on her face. The pain was amplified by the fact that it was because of her ignorance and poor plans. She sat there in total consternation. - taking her time to digest all what had happened. But it was too much I guess. I finally dropped her to ISBT and put her on a bus back to home. Sadness, dejection, frustration, anger – It was time for all negative emotions. It was really a sad end!!