Buffalo-NYC-Frankfurt-Mumbai-Bangalore

Monday 10th Jan.. the morning is rushed.. shutting down my experiments, then coming home to toss a few last things into my bags. Tracie drops me off at the airport.. my luggage is well within the limits.. JetBlue have done great with their Airbus A-320s.. leather seats and individual DirectTV flatscreens with 30+ channels. Only problem with the Buffalo-NYC flight is that you barely take off and its time to land again!

The Delta Airways flight is delayed 45 min.. i dont mind, cos its my first time changing flights at JFK, and it takes me an hour working out what terminal i have to go to using the AirTrain. I have a good window seat, and my neighbour is a soft-spoken German woman who doesnt look overtly talkative. There's nothing quite like sleeping on a night flight.. its very relaxing once you slip into REM.. the throbbing of the engines rocking you gently. i wake up a few hours later.. the roar of the engines no longer lulling.. in fact i am hardly able to hear myself think.

I peer out into the darkness. The window is a black oblong set against the internal ambient lighting. The bright white light on the wing tip flashes like an incandescent flame against the pitchblack sky. Finally i make out some stars in the sky, and ridiculously enough i feel closer to them! We are 35,000 feet above the N. Atlantic.. the temperature outside -52 F. Yes, that makes me feel warmer inside.

I choose the roast beef and baked veggies for dinner. Portions are grossly small, and i am not impresed so i dig into my backpack and pull out two cereal bars i'd carried for emergencies.. this counts as an emergency! To my dismay and my neighbour's consternation, i'm still hungry.. but no luck with second helpings, the flight is full. One of the radio channels has a grunge review.. i catch Pearl Jam's 'Alive' and Alice in Chains 'Would' and immediately feel better. Over the night i try the ambient and modern concerto channels too, both pretty good.

I wake up to the voice of the captain announcing in German that we are above London, and if we looked to the left we should see its lights. Suddenly i feel i've been carried 70 years back, sitting in the rear gunner's cockpit of a Messerschmitt bomber, during the blitzing of London. Unfortunately we are too high to make out any details.

There's nothing like a sunrise on a flight. It's truly a breathtaking experience. First all is black, and its almost impossible to distinguish the horizon if its a moonless night, then suddenly a line of pink appears on the black to define the line of the horizon. The line turns into a band slowly, a curved band bending with the earth. The band itself is a spectrum, going from deep-red to pale-pink. I was kicking myself for not having my camera in reach.. and then just as suddenly it's all over as everything takes on the soft cottony white of an early winter morning. Could you ever tire of seeing the sunrise?

I am disappointed in Frankfurt.. as during the two hour layover we are restricted to the lounge at the boarding gate. I rue the lost chance of meeting pretty German girls, to say 'Guten Tag', 'Auf Wiedersen' and 'Danke' to, some other time i guess. Luckily my next flight to Mumbai is half-empty, so i get to put my feet up and relax. Two pretty stewardesses are plying my aisle, and both are a delight to behold, and talk to. They look like twins, but i guess its cos of the uniforms and similar hairstyles. That's like TWO fantasies now.. hot twins, and pretty blondes in stewardess uniforms.. enough said!! ;-)) The two airhostesses keep plying me with food and drink, and with the seat next to me free, i hunker down and catch some sleep. I wake some time later to see one of the stewardesses tucking in a loose end of the blanket under me. She hears me stir, looks up, and gives me a huge thousand-watt smile.. happily i drift back into happy dreams. :-))

I land in Mumbai, and get an air-conditioned luxury coach transfer to the domestic airport. I'm pleasantly surprised, as Jet Air are no longer the nifty little outfit i saw two years ago.. they've turned into a fully professional and efficient enterprise.. Asia's no. 1 domestic airline. This being a 3 a.m. flight though, we get put onto a ATR!! This is a tiny (40 passenger) twin turbo prop plane! I thought these went out with Charles Lindbergh! But the pretty stewardesses and great service make up for any shortcomings. When i finally land in Bangalore at 5.30am local time, i have been flying for 20+ hours out of 26 on four flights!