The Mahฤrajฤ Rides Into the Sunset!
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I
have not followed the irreverent escapades of the iconic, burly turbaned
Air India Mahฤrajฤ with an impressive 'stache for nearly four decades
now. The recent news of his impending retirement brought old memories
gushing forth like the proverbial floodwaters flushing the dirt and debris down that narrow galli of my
childhood home. Much of the accumulated junk hidden
in the nooks and corners of this noggin seems to have gotten washed away but
some puddles remain, luring me back to
jump in, splash around and get muddy.
I have actully been a guest of the mustachioed Mahฤrajฤ once
- only once. It was my very first trip across the ponds. A veteran of
many
other modes of transportation (including a bone-rattling ride atop the
back of a truck following the NSS camp, with a bunch of other freshers,
sampling the goodies from a jute
sack of jaggery), this was also the first time I was flying! It was
going to be phenomenal.
There
was so much anticipation for the entire family. My dad had made several
trips abroad in his life starting with his two plus year stay for his
PhD in the UK (by the Cunard Lines steam-ship, though.) That was
followed by a stint in the North Americas and later, a six-month
research/teaching stint in the UK in the late sixties. There were
various international conferences during the seventies. He had
been planning much of my upcoming journey carefully over several months.
In our younger days, we had pored over the many glossy brochures he had
accumulated over time that
showcased the portly Mahฤrajฤ's exploits in exotic locations. There he
was, bumping bellies with sumo wrestlers in Tokyo, playing bagpipes
in Edinburgh, tapping the tabla with the moptops twanging sitar
strings in London, hoisting a bier stein in Geneva after a skiing
accident, dressed like a Playboy bunny in New York, snake charming in Rome with a been flute, rescuing a mermaid in Sydney, laying on a bed of
nails next to a bikini clad sunbathing beauty in India, etc. etc. That ever-charming man of mystery had even
taken off his red achkan and laid it on the ground, for a red-carpet
welcome to a lady boarding a plane. There was no question as to which airlines
I would choose for my travels.
Unfortunately,
as luck would have it, my dad had to travel for a two-month assignment
out of the country a week before I was departing the native shores. He
worried... like so many of our dads, looking for 10 sides of the problem
that may have had only two, wanting to make my journey smooth. Perhaps
he did not have as much faith in my abilities as I did. To him, I was
probably still the same toddler that he got acquainted with two decades
ago.
The trip was to
start with an Indian Airlines flight that came from Calcutta (it had not
become Kolkatฤ yet). It would make a hop, skip and jump going to New Delhi with
stops in Patna and Lucknow on the way. From New Delhi, I was to be the
guest on the potbellied Mahฤrajฤ's big chariot with a stopover in London
and onto the Big Apple.
Like
all well-laid plans o' mice and men, this one started to fall apart
pretty much the moment I set foot outside the home that day. The entire
family had traveled with me for about an hour in a
crowded Ambassador
to the sleepy hometown aerodrome, only to find that the one and the
only flight that
day had not yet left Calcutta. Increasingly hungry, tired and anxious,
they all waited out the ordeal with me for several agonizing hours at
this minimalist location with uncomfortable seats and a total lack of
amenities. It
felt like a lifetime. I will never forget the monumental patience of my
mom and her unshakable faith reassuring me that it would all would work
out eventually. My older sister, who knew all my emotional hot-buttons,
kept a steady stream of casual chit-chat going with me, to calm me
down. My younger sister joined her effort whole-heartedly trying to keep
me from coming unglued. Even my much younger brother wisely used the
time, just wandering around the airport, getting on and off the giant
weighing machine for entertainment, in wide-eyed wonder and mostly
stayed
out of trouble. The Indian Airlines ground staff was tight-lipped and
totally unhelpful. Customer Service was not a familiar phrase during
those days for a public sector concern without any competition.
The
plane, a rickety Boeing 737 much in need of maintenance, finally arrived
about six hours later than scheduled. No explanation or
information about the delay was offered not solicited as the anxious
travelers started the boarding process. The entire family would walk
across the
tarmac to bid me adieu near the plane in those days. I finally went up
the stairs to board, there was no concept of a jetway. The plane
eventually arrived in New Delhi at the domestic terminal which was far away from where I needed to be. My BiL, who
was posted in New Delhi at that time,
was pacing up and down at the
Arrivals waiting for me, as anxious as the rest of the family, having
wasted the entire day waiting. He may not remember but nearly all the
tension I
had felt up to that point drained out almost visibly upon meeting him
there. Much relieved, I actually started to breathe again. We grabbed
some food some
place and chatted about the adventures that lay ahead. He must have
sensed that I was highly stressed and tried to get my mind off the
near-disaster earlier in the day. He stayed with me till we got to the
International terminal and
eventually through the security as I deposited my one suitcase at the
Air India counter. To my family, if I have not expressed
my gratitude ever before, a deep and humble bow. I could not have made
it
without you.
I must say
this first international flight disabused me of any romantic notions I had about the marvelous Mahฤrajฤ's hospitality. I seated myself in my assigned aisle seat in
the front section of Cattle Class after a bit of squabble with a
squatter who claimed severe physical disabilities ailing his wife,
needing my aisle seat. The mysterious "health" issues cleared up fast
as everyone took their original assigned seats. The Air Hostess (before
they all became Flight Attendants) in that section stayed a tactful
distance away, letting the crowd conduct several such ongoing
territorial negotiations without her intervention.
The
plane, an early generation Jumbo 747, had apparently seen many better
days before getting re-re-deployed on the mighty Mahฤrajฤ's not-so-secret service.
Most mechanical issues like seat reclining, armrests, seat-belts, tray
tables, etc. would get resolved during the flight with repeated application of
Newton's second law - either a prolonged, steady "push/tug" or in
other cases, rapid "bang/hit" mode. It
was unbearably hot inside the belly of the beast on the tarmac during the sweltering New Delhi
August night. I am not sure why the A/C was not switched
on but the throng around me was getting increasingly restless, irritable and it's
mood was turning ugly. Finally, around 2am, bleary-eyed & numb, I and the other guests of the macho Mahฤrajฤ
got in the air. The need for deodorant, lots of it, was quite apparent.
The lavatories were starting to reveal the shape of things to come.
The in-flight
entertainment was limited to a pair of sticky headphones that worked
intermittently and required frequent plugging and unplugging during the flight. The only movie choice was previous year's Oh, God!
Book II with George Burns which had not been a roaring commercial
success during it's theatrical release. It was shown on a large screen;
one could enjoy it by craning their necks in an unnatural and
uncomfortable position. There was Hindi music, Jazz and light
western instrumental called World Synfonia on the audio. I remember this
last one
well as there seemed to be a large number of rather small human beings
traveling on that flight, most
in adjacent seats across the aisle from me. They seemed needing mid-air
refueling from their moms or diaper changes or whatever continuously,
demanding everyone's attention loudly.
They vocalized alone but often triggered a chain reaction, and at times
all these younglings appeared to be bawling in unison as their hapless
parents tried to shush them. This impromptu live musical performance
that I called the World Cacofonia was quite sensational.
The
food was insipid and it did not live up to the glossy brochures of my memories. I remember a tough, leathery
chicken breast with some brown glop glaze on top and what was described as bhunรฉ huรฉ ฤloo in
Hindi version of the menu card and "salted" potatoes in English instead
of sautรฉed. Oh, a cup of congealed lumpy custard completed the culinary
offerings.
The flight
reached London eventually. Heathrow was a mess and there was mass
confusion. We found out that the tough-guy Prez of the
Anointed States had just fired 30,000 air-traffic controllers while we
were in the air and all flights, specially inbound international flights
to the Ewe Essay were grounded. The Mahฤrajฤ's tight-lipped minions
at Heathrow handed out vouchers for £10 to the unwashed and the
ungrateful huddled masses of our previous flight. The "No further
information available" phrase continued a la the earlier domestic flight.
The mighty Mahฤrajฤ's staff seemed exceptionally well trained on the omerta code. The
voucher was barely enough for a can of Coke and a turkey sandwich at
Heathrow prices. This was also the very first time I ate the tasteless,
cold, reprocessed, shapeless turkey bits slapped between two slices of soggy white bread,
which reminded me of the dire summation of the western palate by a nosy know-it-all neighborhood Auntie ji who had dropped by casually with her very eligible niece earlier in the week.
After
the unscheduled layover spanning most of that hellish day in the
Heathrow holding tank international lounge with fellow travelers riding a roller-coaster of emotions, our journey eventually
resumed. We landed in the late afternoon to the utter chaos at JFK which was still reeling from the
ATC situation. The onward adventures from JFK is a topic for another
day.
I was saddened when
I saw the populist yojana a while back enabling those supposedly wearing hawฤi chappal to be able to travel in hawฤi jahฤz ... while
nothing against the uplifting of the aฤm aฤdmi, it was deeply
disappointing as it seemed to be aimed at achieving that goal by
cheapening the brand instead, by throwing gobar on the impeccable Mahฤrajฤ's
red achkan, dragging him down into the ubiquitous desi mud along
with the hoi polloi. No longer a status symbol, he would not be joining the Capuchin friars in
Rome, selling risquรฉ postcards surreptitiously in the gay Paree
or
collecting coins from the fountain in Florence. This idea stank, in my
opinion, similar to the formation of the McIIT's and McIIM's. This
newer,
younger, the imposter mahฤrajฤ (without the capital M) seemed to have lost his mojo and
his brightly colored turban, had spiky hair, a shorter 'stache and sans
his traditional wardrobe. He had donned jeans that could not conceal his
paunch gracefully. Even wrapped a lunghi in some version (oh, the
horror!) like WhatsCrapp unkills!
The
icon of our childhood is now in his 8th decade, a dinosaur
and way past his prime. Maybe I am looking at myself in the mirror,
however garden variety my life may have been compared to the legend,
this mythical man with the diamond tip 'stache that could scratch glass.
Am I am taking The Mahฤrajฤ's impending retirement too personally?
Rumors are that he may be replaced with a Mahฤrฤni!?
The Mahฤrajฤ is dead retiring! Long live... the Mahฤrฤni?
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