Day 1 - Kingfisher,London Skies and Patel

It was the auspicious day of Raksha Bandhan that I was leaving for London. I had a sad and terrible night before which I will refrain from talking about here. I want this section to only speak of positive things. Last 1 month has been a month of deep sorrow and mourning. In many ways it’s changed how I look at life.

So coming back to London, both Meru and Mega cabs were not available for a short trip to the airport (they’re doing tremendous business) and I had too much luggage to be taken in a rickshaw. And lo! Anuj Gosalia comes to my rescue. He is my saviour. It’s funny that he CAN actually be useful to someone : P. On a more serious note though it was touching to have both Anuj and Dhruval Doshi wake up early morning on a holiday just to drop me to the airport.

Now I have about 45 kgs of luggage in 2 bags with me which needed to be checked in. Kingfisher was kind enough to allow me upto 50 kgs since I am a student. I must mention that my experience with Kingfisher has been very good so far and I have flown double digit times with them. This was my first International flight with them though. I had web checked in and had booked a window seat about 2 months back: P (People who’ve travelled with me know what a sucker I am for the window seat!) I had about 2 hours before the flight took off. Went off to sleep for a while and had a Multi-grain sandwich from Cafe Coffee Day. It’s the only real affordable place at the airport to eat food. Rs.90 wonly.... There was row wise check in for the flight which was a first for me. I have been to Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia and have never seen this before. It’s quite efficient actually.

On board my co-passenger was a young firangi girl with whom I didn’t strike conversation until very late in the journey. More about that later. Kingfisher is good. I loved the food served on board. Desserts, White rum, snacks.....no reason for me to complain. The in-flight entertainment options are very good too. I watched Wake up Sid again and liked it more now. Also, saw a little bit of Bollywood Calling (Om Puri, Perizaad Zorabian wala movie). Thought it was quite trashy. I also saw one whole part of a BBC documentary on India that I have on my laptop. Not much needs to said about the cabin crew J! I think they do well and deliver on most promises that they make. The flight was jam packed and not a single seat was empty! I have made some good money on the aviation sector in the stock markets and I see no reason to sell my stocks: P The only cause of discomfort for me was the space and the leg room in the economy class for a man of my size. Plus, since I was on the window seat, every time I got up my co-passenger had to move which is a problem in a 9 hour flight because that would happen often. I got up only 3 times though in the entire flight. There’s of course the perennial problem of the guy sitting on the front seat reclining by a few degrees. There are only 2 ways out of this. Either adjust your size to the seat or make so much money that you can afford the next level of comfort. I think I like the latter option better ;-) The Kingfisher First Class is something I specially went to check out. It is not difficult to imagine the kind of effect it has on an aspirer like me. I don’t care whether it’s worth it or no but there will be a time where I will have the option(affordability wise) of flying first class every time I board a flight.

After about 6 hours into the flight, I was bored. I was fed up of the in-flight entertainment; my laptop battery had given away and was in no mood to read. My co-passenger also seemed bored and so I decided to start a conversation. I asked her if she was a local in UK and she turned out to be one and that question led to about 2 and half hours of good conversation. She is an first year undergraduate student of English Literature in Manchester but a resident of London. She was in India just to travel around with some friends. She said she had some of the best and the worst times of her life in India over the previous 6 weeks. And btw, she also had very good words for Kingfisher AirlinesJ. We talked about a lot of things and what struck me was the maturity. I have met very few girls in India of a similar age who can talk about so many things with such a perspective. Time just flew by until when we were over London. Congestion at Heathrow meant our pilot was forced to hover over London and that was the best thing that happened. It was a clear day in London and the city looked amazing from the plane. And since I had the window seat I had an awesome view! Plus, I had a guide in her. She kept on showing me important locations which she could spot. It was weird for her to see London from the top. It was quite a sight to see the River Thames, the 2012 Olympics stadium under construction, London Eye etc. She was kind enough to offer her contact details just in case I needed help in London.

Too much congestion at London Heathrow...something I have experienced often at Mumbai over the last 1 year. It took about 20 minutes to get out of the plane after landing. My immigration clearance and baggage clearance was pretty smooth. Almost everyone around me was asked to open up their bags for inspection. I was just asked a few questions and was allowed to go. I had no pickles and dairy products and they were happy with that. The toilets at Heathrow were quite dirty.

At the arrival gate waiting was Mr. Patel! He called out to me and I saw Alpesh. Same. Untidy long hair and no change in body size or shape. Harshal Shah(another NMite and Umangite) had also come along wearing shorts in what was turning from clear skies to quite a chilly weather. First thing Mr.Patel does is hand me over a Nokia N93 with a Vodafone sim. He declares it is my phone and my number for as long as I want to use it. We drove back to Guildford, Surrey in a taxi. Technically, it was the first time I was sitting in an Audi. Alpesh and Harshal live in a nice house in Guildford with 5 other inmates. We ordered Dominos Pizza and it was great catching up with THE Alpesh Patel. Already discussions on whether he should come back to India have started and there is going to be more discussion in the following week.

The garlic herb dip is something which Dominos HAS to introduce in India. By the way, Dominos doesn’t give any 30 mins guarantee in UK : P. Full with great pizza and tired after a long journey I just fell off to sleep at 9.30pm London time.

(No pictures are available for Day 1 as the camera did not come out of the bag. Hopefully from next post onwards there will be lesser words and more pictures)