A reunion after 17 years

Ashutosh and I have been friends since grade 9 when he moved to my school. Throughout our school tenue, we would only sit with each other, which at times ran us into trouble but we didn’t care about it. After our 12^th grade, he moved to Noida for his studies and I stayed back in Varanasi to pursue my graduation before moving to Bangalore for my masters. During this time we would meet each other briefly during vacations.

Once Ashu completed his master's, he came to Bangalore to attend interviews, together we explored Bangalore for a week, before he moved to Varanasi to join his family business, after that we couldn’t meet each other as we were busy in our lives. The irony is we couldn’t even attend each other’s wedding as I had just switched job and I couldn’t take leave. We tried multiple times to catch up but our work schedule didn’t allow us and 17 years passed by but we were in touch through video and voice calls.

It so happened that I had to travel to Delhi on a business trip and I so wished if he was there so that we could meet. I just called him casually and told him about my travel plan and he enquired about the dates, and the moment I disclosed the dates, his happiness knew no bounds and I was wondering WHY? Then he told me that he too would be in Delhi at that time with his family as they attending a wedding. His excitement was evident in his voice. Then I told him that my hotel was in Greater Noida and he would have to come down to meet me as I had no idea of the places.

I also told him that I was not sure how much time I would be able to give him or if we could meet either as I was unaware of my work schedule and his response was clear if we don’t meet “ don’t ever call me” and I was like dude I will try my level best but work is also important. Finally, we decided to try our level best.

I reached Delhi on an early morning flight from Bangalore, took a cab to Greater Noida, checked in to the hotel, and left for my work. All this while I and Ashu were in constant touch with each other. My work got over a little earlier than I anticipated and Ashu asked me to come to Delhi as he was in some market. Immediately I booked the cab and left for Delhi.

After 90 minutes I reached the place where we were supposed to meet, and we couldn’t locate each other, then I asked him to share his location, and based on that finally, we were able to meet after 17 long years.

I still couldn’t believe I was seeing he was in front of me and the moment we met we just hugged each other, ignoring the world around us. Soon enough his wife also joined us, I was meeting her for the first time.  The moment she left for shopping we found a place for us to sit and chit-chat.

We were so engrossed in talking that we didn’t realize that 3 hours had already passed by and it was getting late, as I had to travel back too. We went for dinner and tried Haldiram’s as I had heard a lot about them.

After dinner, it was time to say goodbye I booked the cab and the moment the cab came, Ashu told the driver to drive safely. He even took a photo of the cab and asked me to share the ride details, which I did.

On the way to my hotel I was thinking about the travel that I undertook that day, Bangalore – Delhi – Greater Noida – Delhi and to Greater Noida again. A business trip and a wedding forced both of us to leave our home turf and come to a neutral ground where we could meet. Sometimes unplanned trips are more exciting than planned ones. 

Spicejet’s mid air Holi Party, what was it?

Whenever we use mediums of transport like cab, bus, train or flight, knowing or unknowing we give our safety in the hand of the people who will be operating these modes of transport. It is the responsibility of the drivers and pilots to ensure that the passengers are taken their destination with utmost care and concern with adequate safety measures.

Recently a video on youtube left me speechless, I saw that video 30 times but didn’t knew what was attracting me towards? It was the video of Spiecejet flight from Goa to Bangalore on 17^th March’14, where crew members celebrated holi mid air. They performed on the song “balam pichkari”. The most astonishing part of the video was, both pilots were part of the celebration. One of the pilots joined the crew to perform on the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2VrVivIxI

 

During this time the fight was on auto pilot, the duration of the celebration was 2.40 min but the risk undertaken by the pilots, crew members and the innocent passengers were very high. Anything could have happened during that time. Lucky passengers. Some passengers recorded the entire celebration on their smart phones and uploaded it on youtube. That’s how entire world came to know about it.

Post this incident both pilots have been placed under suspension and a show cause notice has been issued to Spicejet. News channels are airing this incident as hot cake and cashing on it. Have any one of us ever thought why this incident happened? I don’t think so. I feel this was marketing strategy which went horribly wrong.

Reasons to support my thought are as following.

1. Next couple of month’s flight will have low business so in order to attract customer Spicejet would have done it. Couple of airlines has reduced the air fare by 70%. Strategies are being made to retain and attract new customers.
2.  Are pilots and crew members authorized to perform any such celebration without informing their higher up? I don’t think so. If that would have been the case then cabin crew would have behaved with the passengers they feel like and pilots would have taken flights to the destination liked by them than the one assigned to them.
3. Pilots are not suppose to come out of the cockpit during the flight or allow people inside, then what forced /motivated them perform on the flight that too mid air? They had rehearsed for the performance.

Don’t know who did what but feel pity on the pilots who has lost their jobs. I am not justifying the act of pilots because they didn’t discharge their duty to the diligently so they should be punished. But want to know one thing “Did pilots performed out of their free will or they were forced to do it? Depending upon the answer only their punishment can be determined.