Saturday, June 16, 2012

Travels Again!

So travels begin again...

Hopefully not a long break, I should be checking back in by next week.

By the way, talking of travelling, how do you spend your time during your travels??

I must admit I haven't travelled by train since the initial days of my career. Then train was the only viable option for the pocket. A few years down the line, the weighing of options began - Air travel won hands down - anyone who has worked in the media or as a journalist would know, how difficult it is to get leave. So travelling from Mumbai to Kochi by train would mean losing at least 50-52 hours of precious one- to at most- two weeks of leave. So then my air travels began.

I think I would have travelled more by bus and plane than by train. Having an NRI father meant, we were weaned on air travel. As a child, I remember being scared of planes crashing over the vast vast ocean my little eyes would see from the plane window. I think this was around the time of the Kanishka crash ( if my memory serves me right!) Imagine the plight of my mother, travelling from Kochi to Cameroon, when I was just one and later to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, with a precocious seven-year old, a fidgety, highly clingy two-year old old and loads of luggage. Amma still shudders at the thought of what trauma those flights would turn out to be. Keeping the ever-bored older brat and snivelling younger one in check. Amma had one rule - never to allow her kids to be a nuisance to fellow travellers.

Every time, I travel in flights filled with kids, I think back to those times. Parents these days are so indulgent. On my flight from Mumbai to Bangalore recently, there was a little rascal sitting behind me ( sorry about sounding completely non-maternal, but the kind of kid that makes you wonder why people are so dying to procreate!) The kid did not have a low register, everything needed to be said at the highest pitch. The parents were like character actors in his personal drama. The kid would not stop talking for thirty seconds at a stretch. I am usually the kind who loves kid banter and can engage them in conversation for hours on end. But give me a kid like this and I'd hunt out socks and stuff it nice and tight to keep them quiet. So well, the parents didn't believe in any form of censure. So there was the brat, shouting at the top of his lungs to just about everyone, talking about everything from the seat-belt to when they would be served, to his nursery rhymes. The father didn't have enough clout to get the child to be seated before the take-off and could be heard pleading with the steward asking him to use his toughest tone to convince the boy to sit down!! Need I say how the rest of the trip went?

But the best time to travelling is late night flights. I can rarely sleep on flights. On long international flights, I watch back-to-back films - in fact, it is my most favourite passtime. I look forward to long haul flights for the chance to catch up on several films. Though I usually have a book or two in hand, I find myself rarely reading on international flights. So much to do and there's always a steward or stewardess coming up, offering you a drink or a snack. However, on domestic flights - with mostly only those stewards turned vendors to turn to - I normally seek refuge in my book. Mine is often one of the few reading lights that remain on, much to the irritation of my fellow travellers. There is however one thing that can keep you entertained, if the book you are reading is not entertaining enough!

The most hilarious part for more, about taking a late night flight is identifying the various categories of snorers around you...

Some are gentle gurglers - you feel like going awwww, they must be really tired and want to get them a blanket to keep them snug and warm.

There are the robust hooters - you can't miss them, its a shrill hoot and travels across aisles and windows and pierces your ear drums at regular intervals.

Then I have identified the steam rollers - a bit imaginative of me to think that if they were to be a machine, there would be steam emanating from all that mechanical energy being generated..

And finally, my favourite - the sleep musicians - the hardened snorers, who have perfected a medley of tunes - a range of wind-tones that go from the gurgle of the stream to the wheezing of the car engine starting every morning in your neighbourhood.

The only kind I'm scared of is the one where the person appears to be choking in their sleep, as if someone has a couple of fingers pressed to their throat!

Do you have any favourite mode of entertaining yourself while travelling?? Tell me, tell me, I'm all ears...:D

16 comments:

  1. Deepthy , such a wonderful post on travel that too when I too am indulging in real long haul flights with very similar situations encountered1I too have traveled in rickety buses and unreserved trains for real long distances! Hope you have a wonderful time and come back with more melodramas to narrate:)

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  2. it's great adventure again.. thanks for sharing it's interesting topic..

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  3. hahaha! I had a good time reading this

    1. I prefer train travel any day, but RD prefers the flight because like your logic, he prefers saving time :)

    I am a mother to a hyper active 4 year old and trust me, having her on the flight is not an easy task!!! though I ensure she doesnt disturb other people, but at times, when her ears hurt or something, it gets pretty crazy!

    I have travelled long distance only twice and I just slept off :)

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    1. Yaar, looing in moving trains especially after half the compartment has watery-ed and messed the little space about is my biggest nightmare on trains..and planes just get you from point A to point B in an average of two hours..:) Knowing you, I doubt if little R gets the chance to do man-maani :)

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  4. A unique post on pet-travel-peeves! I also love kids but I hate all varieties of enfant terrible passionately. Most of all, I feel like kicking their doting parents hard on their backsides. And hey, I loved that analysis of snorers!

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    1. :) I think snorers are the most entertaining as long as you aren't attempting to catch up on your own lost forty winks..:) I seriously think misbehaved children are a result of bad nurture than nature...And needing intervention from strangers to set your children right because you don't have the heart to discipline them or because they don't listen to you are such weak excuses...

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  5. My favorite pastime is reading while travelling. These days even I travel by flight more often so there is hardly any time to entertain yourself..

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    1. Im waiting for the day when wi-fi becomes common on flights too..will be good fun...

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  6. hahaha nice one. On international flights, I prefer non stop movies. On domestics flights i listen to music, or have some co passengers who definetly amuses me. I hate buses and love trains. And on both the occassions I only need 2 things, ipod and a book :-)

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    1. Jenny, guess what, I'm in your city till tomorrow. So if you see this comment, then we must try and catch up.. Feels like I know you well by now..:)

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  7. LOL at the types of snorers. Interesting observation. :)

    Train journeys used to be pretty boring for me as a kid. Then, as I grew up, I began to entertain myself on long train journeys by reading, sleeping and observing the people around me. And of course - eating. :) And watching out the window at the stupendous sights that would pass me by.

    These days, we hardly undertake any train journeys, as we are always hard-pressed for time. Most of our journeys are on flights, as we need to report back to work within a few days and do not have the luxury of a long train journey. Most of the flights we have been on have been for a couple of hours only, and ended as soon as they begun. I do not know how I would fare on a really long flight journey.

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    1. Flights make things kind of boring don't they?? Well, long flights usually end up with watching movies, sleeping and pacing the length of the plane to increase circulation..Little else to be done..:) Nothing like a few train tales, I think they are the most entertaining journeys, but loo-horrors keep me happy that Im not train travelling..:)

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  8. My favorite is lip reading and observing body language of fellow travelers esp while waiting at the airports.It is fun,great TP and stress buster :D Agree with you there-long flights can not be imagined without movies and books!

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    1. A dear friend and I...(both total dramebaaz) would attempt to do this...sit and watch people and try to imagine the conversations they are having and also what they do in real life and where they are coming from...Hey, this could form the core of an interesting post..what say we both attempt one?? :)

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