I booked my ticket to the homeland just last week. I am flying Northwest – they had a great deal going. But the journey to India just doesn’t make the “desi” cut unless you fly Air India. What is this desi traveling experience I refer to? Allow me to explain:

The Joys of Flying Air India…

Joy #1: Seats are assigned by God
Remember how we used to write our names on the desks and chairs in school to claim our seats. Well all Air India passengers will claim their seats as if their name is written on it. Any request by a fellow passenger or an attempt by an air hostess to swap seats will be thwarted with a scowling face and decisive “No, sorry, this is my seat.” It doesn’t matter if someone is old or air sick or needs to be seated with a spouse or child – no self-respecting Air India passenger will ever give up his/her seat under any circumstances.

Joy #2: The first grade in-flight service
All air hostesses were schoolteachers in a previous life. Or maybe even in this life. When teachers are too old to teach and retire from their schools, they become Air India air hostesses. They yell and talk like teachers trying to settle in unruly first grade students “Now pleeeease fasten your seat belts”. If you ask them for anything, they look at you sternly and make you feel like you are 10 years old. They even wake you up and make you eat your meals or at the very least, they open your folding table as you sleep and bang the tray on there. It gives them almost the same satisfaction as rapping students on the knuckles with a ruler once did.

Joy #3: The happening STD lines in transit airports
If your flight is in transit, for example a layover in Bombay en route to Hyderabad, you will certainly experience this joy. The lines will be long because
A- On principle, all desis feel the need to call their homes and update their families about their arrival even if their flights are right on time.
B- Once on an STD call, desi passengers will want to talk about all kinds of mundane matters with all members of their family and extended family despite the long lines behind them and despite the fact that they are a few short hours away from meeting these people in person.
Needless to say, this is one of the noisiest areas of the airport because desis are hard-wired to yell at the top of their voices whenever they are on any long-distance call, no matter how clear the lines.

Joy #4: The custom and immigration form literacy club
Can you read and write? If so, please be prepared to fill at least 10 forms for your fellow passengers who are either illiterate or have too many kids to fill out the forms themselves. Don’t try to be a hero and be overly nice because then all these same people will also request you to lift their luggage from the conveyor belts upon arrival.
Warning! Do not treat this matter lightly because desi passengers always carry the maximum number of bags with the maximum weight, and any helpless female passenger you decided to help can have up to five children, as you will find out a dozen bags and a broken back later.

Joy #5: The well-behaved children
If you are lucky enough to be seated in front of a family with small children, you will experience the joy of getting your seat kicked all through the flight. Sometimes several children will unite in the attempts to kick your seat. If for some insane reason, you decide not to enjoy this and turn around and request the parents to make their child behave, they will half-heartedly tell their child to stop kicking and then ignore the matter. The wisdom behind this as every desi parent knows is that if a child is busy bothering the passenger in front, the child is less likely to bother the parent during the flight.

Joy #6: The fancy dress party
This applies mostly to passengers flying to India from the Gulf countries. Overexcited parents decide to dress up their children in their most lavish (read outlandish) outfits so as to bowl over poorer relatives and grandparents with their newly acquired wealth and grandeur. Never mind how uncomfortable the baby might be throughout the flight and how loudly it may howl and prevent anyone on the plane from sleeping a wink. My all-time favorite funny flight story is of a five or six year old girl whose mother had dressed her up as a fairy much to the chagrin of an unsuspecting passenger in an aisle seat who almost had his eye poked out by the wings on the girl’s costume as she passed by him. I will never forget his irritated bellow “Abbaaa, zara sambhal k chalo pari. Aankhaan phut jaare humaare.”

Joy #7: Lively interaction between passengers
Ok there is no way to describe this one except in the words of my friend Fadia who has contributed several anecdotes to this article, the best among them being this one “by the way, this time when I was flying back to India from Jeddah, they actually had a brawl in the flight (Air India) before take off... and you know about what? People were removing other’s luggage from the overhead compartments and throwing it down, replacing it with theirs. lol. It was like a regular riot… screaming and fighting... even the stewards and the teachers (read airhostesses) were ignored throughout.”

Man! Air India never lets you down - it just keeps getting better and better. I should definitely start flying Air India again. The “in-flight entertainment” alone is worth the price of the ticket!

(Side Note for My Readers:
I request readers to post any funny flight stories of their own in the comments. Some anonymous reader posted the cutest comment on my last article “its update time! :)” and so many of my friends also urged me to write. Its encouragement like that which inspires me to write articles like this.)