When I reached the airport, the driblets of rain was all around, the drops were reached my car glasses, wiper was doing its duty, the dramatic moments of rain was glorious and I was witnessing it. Rain is always a beauty. that too the summer rain has its own blow to cool down human mind as well as the surface of this earth. My eyes were rolling to notice a Rajasthan woman who bends herself to protect her child from rain, never minded young man of Nepal, an unknown tree which was completely wet and looks bright green. A low flight of an aircraft was searching its track, pole knotted balloons were describing the direction of wind. I was feeling curious about the single tree now; it was looking like crying for her loneliness. Like the tank fishes, single trees are always reflecting sorrows. When I came back to my car glasses, it was 8.30 pm.
My flight will be at 9.30 pm, I am about to travel sandal for one of our projects, I have checked my tickets and other documents. That might be a fifteenth time I have done that, it was a holiday and there was no much crowd at the airport. A jawan of border security force was sitting inside of the dirty sand bags, two uniformed airhostesses were dragging their bags and moving, they were looked like tired by smiling, they have to be professionally smile all the day, even on their own pains and sorrows they have to smile, now they felt like free from smile.
I had been near to the schedule monitor and checked my flight’s departure time, it has been delayed for two hours now, due to the weather or some technical fault in the aircraft, it has been delayed. I was little worried now for the further delay expected. Airport is always a different world; there was a huge difference between a common man’s world and airport people’s world, the minimum difference may be around twenty rupees, I have ordered a cup of coffee which cost around thirty rupees without any guilty. The price of this coffee includes of that sales boy’s English as well as his uniform I believe.
Drivers with the display cards, a long waited father introduced by a mother to her kid, a police man talking to his home with an A K 47, the automatic glass doors, common sky for all this frames.
It was around 9.45 pm and I heard that notice about my flight departure and luckily there was no further delay. I have been completed my check in formalities and entered into the gate, I can stay here for another 15-20 minutes, I decided to relax outside and sat on the corridor chairs, felt like smoking, but not possible. There were some Europe countries allocated smokers waiting lounge, gloomy and smoky lounges contains of multi colour and communities. An American as well as a Chinese can forget their identities and joins the club of smokers.
A long notice interacted my mind as follows; Flight Number 767 of Delta Airlines from Mumbai to Sendal via Hong Kong and Tokyo will depart in ten minutes. I was little panic and rushed into the gates of my flight, the temporary steps and dooms of my flight was about to close and I almost ran through into it. “We welcome you on board sir” was the response I faced there, still she asked my boarding pass and shown her hand into the middle of that aircraft. It was almost full and also noisy, people were still talking through their cell phones, I came and settled on my seat allocated, and surprisingly a German kid was next to me playing with her parents. Kids all around this world were one and the same; they made this world more comfortable and happy. They were separated from war towards peace. We have received an announcement from our chief pilot. We were intimated and forced to wear our seat belts, finally I started flying and it was 12.10 am.
It was quiet silent and I heard some of us were still talking to each other, slowly moving light shadows insist us that we were so far from earth, may be some of the homeless men were getting wet by rain. We came to know through an announcement that our aircraft will be going to land at Hong Kong, still five more hours we supposed to travel on board. Most of us were sleeping. We have landed even at Tokyo and departed. After 45 minutes from Tokyo departure, we heard a little worried announcement from our chief pilot. It said that “we were requested to go back to Tokyo as sandal airport was damaged due to bad weather; there is no need to worry about as we have sufficient fuel for another 7 Hours fly”.Now everyone gets confused and looking at each other, I was just looked into the Germanian kid sleeping near to me, pilots were continuously announcing about the weather status. They asked us to not to worry, but I observed some worried clouds in their voice. After fifteen minutes there was a shocking announcement about the closure of Tokyo Airport. Now the entire aircraft starts jerking with confusion. Someone screamed and someone questioned about the stability. Airhostesses of our flight were still try to smile and make us to smile.
Now the announcement was not clear, but it conveyed the message that, it’s not possible to land at Tokyo or the nearest airport Nagoya as both of these airports were severely damaged by tsunami. We had been diverted to Hokkaido Island and unfortunately Sendal city itself was not there. Still our aircraft was out of danger and sufficient fuel. I was just remembering my friends at sandal, James was the youngest man in our team, I met him at my office last month, when he was very much delighted about his Japan travel. He has called me yesterday and spoken to me for 10 minutes, and finally he told that he is very much expecting me for the next day’s lunch. But life has its own calculations. I was more curious to remembering his face and pray for him now. Men always have over confident on life, but nature has the keys of every rooms. It may wipe out men’s science, innovations and medicines.
Now we felt a serious jerk in the aircraft and a shocking announcement, it said that we were little out of fuel now; we had been requested to face an emergency landing, that the moment was very worst in my life and someone behind me was crying; now the germanian kid was waked up. The mother of this kid was now holding her baby with tears. I was looking out into the glass windows and there was water everywhere, I didn’t even see landscape anywhere, the frames of my vision on that moment was explaining me about the power of nature without even a single word.
Now we have received an announcement stating that, if everything goes in a right direction, our aircraft can land at Sidos airport, we have fuel for another half an hour. Now he himself removed the hopeful words from his announcements. He might have lost the hope. After exactly ten minutes we have noticed decrease of distance between earth and our aircraft and finally our chief pilot screamed and announced that we are now safely try to landing at Sidos airport. Sidos airport authorities made arrangements for an emergency landing for us. Now, I started smiling to that germanian kid, she too. We found there was still life for this human bunch on board. People started running from the flight and somebody jumping. The destination of us has been deleted by almighty. I was walking like a sheep without having any plans. We have been invited and provided Juice by the airport medical unit. Now I have seen a smokers lounge over there. Felt like running into it and lighted my cigar. Right opposite to me was my chief pilot. We were now celebrating our escape. It’s a strange world to always find lot of reasons to celebrate. Let us celebrate life.
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