Friendly airhostess

Choosing Indian Airlines for Dubai-Mumbai turned out to be both foolish and wise. The timing was advanced and the flight merged with Air India. The first thing I noticed entering the plane was the smile-less smile of a middle-aged airhostess (what is news in that? Most AI airhostesses are middle-aged or look so!). She was mechanically saying “Namaste,” looking in some other direction.
Half way through the flight the journalist in me was restless. When another middle-aged airhostess brought water, I cut in asking, “By any chance do you know one airhostess UD?”
“Oh, UD? You din’t know she had a baby recently,” she went off.
Finding her friendly, I started off on a long conversation when a purser also joined us. The Parsi guy was very cheerful. I was seated on the last row of a huge jumbo and hence was quite at ease with the crew.
After a long conversation circling around poor treatment of AI staff and journalists, we were parting on a cordial note. That’s when the airhostess came with two books, “take it as a gift to your child.” The purser followed with more gifts and I was stunned by their affection. I took two pens from my pocket and offered as return gift.
This world is full of lovely people ya. All we need is to open up and share. We can all fly high.
Why it was foolish to travel AI? I was forced to wait nearly an hour for baggage. Imagine with family waiting outside past midnight.
Anyway, all’s well that ends well.
Hey buddies, plz plz plz..pardon me if I don’t comment on your blogs for just a few days. Am wrapping up personal work in Mumbai and going to Chennai next week for a week. You all are always in my mind.