My every instinct

Arrived in Kolkata on Friday night, a flight delay made unecessarily irritating by an airlines lack of organisation or compassion. It was a past 9 pm drive home on empty roads, emptier than normal because of a Good Friday/ Holi holiday. Saturday was the same. Excellent chinese lunch at Bar-b-Que on Park Street and our car was one of a very few on the street. It was such a pleasant drive, even in 30+ degree weather, few people and empty roads, a rarity in Kolkata. It was a good day of chatting and bonding and catching up. The holiday ended too soon and I, stuffed with homemade dal-baadaam halwa, rasagulla's from Chitteranjan and kaju barfi from Gangaur was not in any way, shape or form ready to get on that plane and come home.

The flight home took everything out of me. Like every long flight I can remember its as if some god of aviation is watching down over me and saying' Aaaah putz on the radar'. Before Bloody Airlines (BA) could get it's act messed up there was the inefficient Kolkata pairport to contend with. Checked-in with surprising ease, my 25 kg suitcase trundled along the conveyor belt to its secret hold. That ease was the false security that should have tipped me off. Because then it was a half hour wait in line before the one Immigration official comes to his desk and begins the laborious process of checking 300+ people's passport/ visa details. Then it's another forty minute wait till Security gets its act together and begins to let us through. Unecessary waits, in lines of irate and sleepy passengers, between things, where there seems to be no good reason to make people wait other than the fact that it's so much more part of your job to TEXT AND USE YOUR MOBILE WHILE A PLANE LOAD OF PEOPLE HANG ABOUT IN A LINE. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLEEDING NIGHT. IDIOTS. Finally, we are sitting in the lounge, reading, listening to ipods, munching on biscuits (mainly the myriad Bengali's in the room, all of whom seem to bring out a packet of bis-coot from knapsack on the dot at 3.30am) and trying to stay awake at this unearthly hour.

Bloody Airline tries to board us in an orderly row number fashion. But at 4.30am we are having none of it. Oversized hand baggage stuffed into overhead lockers, we are settling down to slumber as we take off and they are soon pushing a breakfast of chicken sausage or vegetarian (nobody knows what) on us. It's just gone 5am, it's pitch dark and I cannot belive anyone wants to eat. Yet they do. I don't, so I slip off my shoes and step into sleep.

Ony to be woken about 10 minutes later with loud wailing. A small child 4 rows ahead of me has taken it upon himself to entertain us all by crying. Loudly. For 3 straight hours. I kid you not. 3 hours later his lungs give in and he whimpers into sobbing silence. The sigh of relief in this airborne prison is audible. Every passenger shifts slightly preparing for another try at the sleeping-in-uncomfortable-positions game. We needn't have bothered. In 5 minutes flat a child 6 rows behind has begun his protest. Again with wails loud enough to shatter eardrums. For nearly 3 hours. After this it all became a blur. Another kid a bit further back picked up on the crying and joined in the part-EY. Original kid didn't want to be left out and awoke from his slumber to lend his powerful voice. So for the entire remainder of the trip it was a chorus that my ears are still ringing from. With no break whatsoever. LOUD and I mean LOUD crying from 3 small children is the way to travel 11odd hours. NOT.

Bloody Airlines tried to tempt us with some soggy cold sanwich and then with a hot meal of dry rice and smelly curry. The sound on my personal entertainment unit did not work and they had no seat/ advice or help to give me so in desperation to get away from the noise I wore the headphones and watched Chak De by reading the subtitles.

Landed in a small snow flake dance show. Very very very glad to see my boy V at the barriers. Hushed conversation in the car on the way home gave my ears some recovery time.

Don't get me wrong, I love kids, more specifically other people's kids, who can be returned with poopy diapers and crocodile tears. But what with the incessent wailing and slightly older kids 5 hour running around the aisles parties that made this 10+ hour flight seem like 100+ hours I think I have confirmed that when push comes to shove I lack the deep down maternal instinct. All I could could think was how much I wanted to get up and smack those kids and their parents. Thank god for the restraint that a seat belt provides.