Madhepura - Saharsa - Patna (and mum from Chennai) - Delhi - Doha - PARIS! I guess it's true what they said, 'The journey is the destination', because boy, this journey was long!
Day One - of our trip to Europe has helped me learn the characteristics of an International airport - absolutely no people (in terms of number of people per square metre relative to the Indian janata density), lots of PDA, self flushing toilets (how did it know?!), Duty free shopping, silence, terribly expensive lens solution, bland food, eery cleanliness and metallic colour theme making me feel as though I was part of a science fiction movie. I realised how Indian I am, as we sat down to have the salad we had ordered, mentally converting the dollars to rupees and desperately wishing for some chilli flakes. It's funny the kind of things that can make you feel patriotic!
My mum and I found ourselves giggling over foreign languages, snapping pictures of the randomest things and taking selfies when all other means of time pass had been exhausted on the plane. All my hopes of meeting an intriguing young foreigner of the opposite sex quickly disintegrated when I was meet instead by a family man with a special affiliation for Rajnigandha (Bihar just doesn't seem to want to let me go!)
We passed over so many different countries as we flew from Doha to Paris, places I'd only seen on the map, various different terrains I'd read about in geography class. Flying over Doha was like flying over a chapatti made by a very artistic child. It seemed as though the islands head been drawn and thrown across the sea like one would sketch artistic doodles on the corners of their notebooks when they're bored and sitting by the lecture hall window day dreaming of exotic lands. Qatar airways has very kindly provided us with 3D Maps, which had me zooming and looking repeatedly from the screen to the ground below, identifying mountains and rivers, the names of which I could never pronounce, in countries I one day hope to visit. As we passed over Salzburg, Austria I gazed in wonder at the meadows far down below me, with miniscule houses and near little country roads, and I'm pretty sure I could almost see Maria, twirling to a song in her head, or Heidi, skipping across the grass, red cheeked, out of breath and brusting with enthusiasm. Rivers snaked through the land forms gathering followers of towns at its banks, their reflections shining like gold in the bright sun. Snow capped mountains, looked deceptively humble and small, as though someone had sprinkled icing sugar unevenly over the tops of their rugged cup cake tips. The food imagery is not a coincidence as we spent a good part of our day eating the same meal over and over again - we had lunch thrice thanks to the time difference. I felt quite like a baby in NICU, confined to a specific bed, getting fed two hourly, taking breaks to pee and poop and getting distracted by the endless collection of movies on the flight. Speaking of movies, it was oddly interesting to take a peek into what everyone was watching, I did this very discreetly when I was waiting to use the bathroom on one of my many breaks. One lady was tearfully dabbing at her eyes as she watched a sappy romcom for the 49th time I'm sure, while a little Korean kid jumped around watching happy feet. Different subtitles cluttered the screens, and when I pressed my eyes together till they were almost closed all I saw was a blur of flashy screens occupying everyone's attention, near rows of passengers all facing the same direction. Wouldn't it be nice if we sometimes faced each other?
Did I tell you our driver's (forgive me, pilot's) name was Vladimir, (from Russia), and immediately I was thinking of Putin and history class in Kodaikanal, and Tamilnadu and chutney and, well you get the drift...
The one thing that really messed with my head, was the time difference, it seemed though we just couldn't get enough of today and so we kept traveling back in time going from 10am to 12noon (Indian time), then back to 10am (Doha time) and then to 12 midnight (Indian time) and then again to 9pm (Paris time) - in effect, it's the only practical form of Time Travel known to man today. When we arrived in Paris at 8:55pm, the wonder of day light saving dawned on us, as it was still light! French signs, french people, french tiled roofs, french short shorts, french grass, french trees and a 'not-so-french-but-completely-Indian-Karan' from Thomas Cook met us at the airport. The weather is breezy and the people are different (now I know how a foreigner feels taking pictures of cows in India). Soon we were shuttled to our accommodation and following dinner are more about to tuck into bed as tomorrow we set out to explore what's called the most romantic city in the world (albeit superficially but explore nonetheless).
Au revoir!
Day One - of our trip to Europe has helped me learn the characteristics of an International airport - absolutely no people (in terms of number of people per square metre relative to the Indian janata density), lots of PDA, self flushing toilets (how did it know?!), Duty free shopping, silence, terribly expensive lens solution, bland food, eery cleanliness and metallic colour theme making me feel as though I was part of a science fiction movie. I realised how Indian I am, as we sat down to have the salad we had ordered, mentally converting the dollars to rupees and desperately wishing for some chilli flakes. It's funny the kind of things that can make you feel patriotic!
My mum and I found ourselves giggling over foreign languages, snapping pictures of the randomest things and taking selfies when all other means of time pass had been exhausted on the plane. All my hopes of meeting an intriguing young foreigner of the opposite sex quickly disintegrated when I was meet instead by a family man with a special affiliation for Rajnigandha (Bihar just doesn't seem to want to let me go!)
We passed over so many different countries as we flew from Doha to Paris, places I'd only seen on the map, various different terrains I'd read about in geography class. Flying over Doha was like flying over a chapatti made by a very artistic child. It seemed as though the islands head been drawn and thrown across the sea like one would sketch artistic doodles on the corners of their notebooks when they're bored and sitting by the lecture hall window day dreaming of exotic lands. Qatar airways has very kindly provided us with 3D Maps, which had me zooming and looking repeatedly from the screen to the ground below, identifying mountains and rivers, the names of which I could never pronounce, in countries I one day hope to visit. As we passed over Salzburg, Austria I gazed in wonder at the meadows far down below me, with miniscule houses and near little country roads, and I'm pretty sure I could almost see Maria, twirling to a song in her head, or Heidi, skipping across the grass, red cheeked, out of breath and brusting with enthusiasm. Rivers snaked through the land forms gathering followers of towns at its banks, their reflections shining like gold in the bright sun. Snow capped mountains, looked deceptively humble and small, as though someone had sprinkled icing sugar unevenly over the tops of their rugged cup cake tips. The food imagery is not a coincidence as we spent a good part of our day eating the same meal over and over again - we had lunch thrice thanks to the time difference. I felt quite like a baby in NICU, confined to a specific bed, getting fed two hourly, taking breaks to pee and poop and getting distracted by the endless collection of movies on the flight. Speaking of movies, it was oddly interesting to take a peek into what everyone was watching, I did this very discreetly when I was waiting to use the bathroom on one of my many breaks. One lady was tearfully dabbing at her eyes as she watched a sappy romcom for the 49th time I'm sure, while a little Korean kid jumped around watching happy feet. Different subtitles cluttered the screens, and when I pressed my eyes together till they were almost closed all I saw was a blur of flashy screens occupying everyone's attention, near rows of passengers all facing the same direction. Wouldn't it be nice if we sometimes faced each other?
Did I tell you our driver's (forgive me, pilot's) name was Vladimir, (from Russia), and immediately I was thinking of Putin and history class in Kodaikanal, and Tamilnadu and chutney and, well you get the drift...
The one thing that really messed with my head, was the time difference, it seemed though we just couldn't get enough of today and so we kept traveling back in time going from 10am to 12noon (Indian time), then back to 10am (Doha time) and then to 12 midnight (Indian time) and then again to 9pm (Paris time) - in effect, it's the only practical form of Time Travel known to man today. When we arrived in Paris at 8:55pm, the wonder of day light saving dawned on us, as it was still light! French signs, french people, french tiled roofs, french short shorts, french grass, french trees and a 'not-so-french-but-completely-Indian-Karan' from Thomas Cook met us at the airport. The weather is breezy and the people are different (now I know how a foreigner feels taking pictures of cows in India). Soon we were shuttled to our accommodation and following dinner are more about to tuck into bed as tomorrow we set out to explore what's called the most romantic city in the world (albeit superficially but explore nonetheless).
Au revoir!
2 comments:
Can't wait to see your next post!!!
i love it Preeti.Please dont stop
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