of forever running

“I’ve reached too early. I don’t know what to do!”

“You mean say you’ve reached the airport at a time where you don’t need to run to the counter and frantically beg the ground staff to let you get on the flight. What time is your flight?”

“8”

“And it is 7 30 right now.”

That was my sister.

I don’t know if I am too impatient or over relaxed but catching flights (on time) has always been something I don’t look forward to. In my head if I don’t check in exactly 5 minutes before the counter is supposed to shut, I am wasting time. My family, particularly my sister gives me a lot of grief about it. I don’t like to spend half an hour airport lounging due to the following reasons:

1. I never want to check my bag in. (I am paranoid about losing it. The baggage belts are, more often than not, extremely inefficient and tend to always get my bag at the very end. )

2. Since I never check my bag in I have to lug it around. I always have several stone pieces in my bag, which make it heavy and difficult to carry. So window shopping/ shopping at airports is out of the question.

3. If I don’t shop/lounge, the other thing to do is eat. Which I usually like to avoid, as I take forever to decide if I should eat healthy /unhealthy /small /large /dessert / sandwich. Yes, it’s endless. Also, the 30% mark up on anything & everything sold at the airport bothers me.

4. and also because I love to walk out of the flight n into the airport and out of it.

This 5-minutes-before-the-gate-shuts-obsession does cause me a lot of stress. There are times there is unexpected traffic, a flat, long queue at the airline counter. There have been several close calls.

There was this once when I kept avoiding leaving a colleagues office because there was this new flyover, which was guaranteed to make you reach the airport in 30 minutes. The cab driver warned me but I believed in the new flyover.

It took me 40 Minutes. Another 5 to run to the counter and get a print out, another 5 to get past the gate and to the check-in counter. I was late. But it was Indian airlines! And the boarding gate shuts 15 minutes, not 30. Perfect.

“No check in baggage ma’am, we’ll have no trouble getting you on board. But please run to security.”

I could already hear them announcing my name to come to the boarding gate while I took my laptop out for the screening.

“Ma’am we cant let you carry these stone pieces in your hand carry.”

“But the Delhi airport allowed me the same bag in the morning!”

“This is not delhi.”

“ The counter is shut. I can’t check the bag in.”

“That’s the responsibility of the airline ma’am.”

“Fine!”

Frantic running.

“Ma’am we cant check the bag in. you are already very late!”

“Please! Let me speak to your manager!”

Manager arrives and more pleading.

“Wait ma’am. Ill see if we can check it in with the staff.”

“Please run ma’am!”

Now my name is being repeatedly announced at the boarding gate. Else they will leave me and unload my baggage! (hah!)

I run through security, with just my laptop and wallet in hand, and into the flight.

Then there was this once when I was visiting a site in Ranchi. I was supposed to catch the flight back the same day so I had precisely 3 hours in the city. The site was about 45 minutes away, leaving me an hour at the site. I landed in Ranchi, and we were at the site in 50 minutes. Everything worked like clockwork and I was done exactly an hour and a half before the flight. The car which was supposed to take me back, however, was nowhere in sight.

Frantic calling.

Somebody is coming to pick up one of the architects so he is going to drop me but the person in question is lost and unable to find the site.

Hurried directions.

Maybe he is at the other gate.

More running.

Now there are 5 people who are running with me.

I think he is here! No, that can’t be him. That is an obsolete Maruti Van! It won’t make it!

“Where is the Innova? This will never make it!”

“We’ll just have to try. That car will take another 15 minutes.”

I can’t miss the flight. I can’t miss the flight! The next flight put is not until tomorrow after noon!

Frantic calling to potential “connections” in the ministry et la. This is Jharkhand after all(ex bihar). Maybe they will hold the flight for me. It is now one hour 5 minutes before the flight.

Frantic calling to the Kingfisher office. The flight is on time.

Frantic calling to “connections” again. For the possibility of a chartered flight flying to Delhi at the same time (I’m not that lucky!).

The maruti omni surprises me. It also reaches in 50 minutes after a very bumpy and stressful ride.

“Don’t leave till I get on the flight!”

Wrong gate! Wrong gate! I, again, am without a printout!

“Ma’am please run. I think they have shut boarding.”

“Photo id please.”

It’s the only flight out of ranchi and clearly the guards are enjoying my misery.

“Relax madam. Mil jaayegi.”

Smile plastered across my face. Cannot find my driving license!

“Will the credit card do?”

“Yes Yes madam.

More running.

Thankfully the manager was already at the counter and didn’t need any pleading. He simply wrote out the boarding card for me because the system had shut.

Also, the ranchi officers didn’t care much about the stone in my bag.

I’ve not always been this lucky. There was this one time when for some reason the flight to lucknow was flying out from the International Airport. Makemytrip.com didn’t care to mention it and I didn’t care to use my common sense as it was an AI flight. Frantic running from the domestic terminal to international and lot of pleading but no result.

I lost the project.

Only consolation, I got my money back from the Makemytrip.com people.

There was also this one time I missed an early morning flight to Ahemdabad. SpiceJet, for some weird reason, decides to pre-pone the flight. The message goes out to everyone. Except me. The system confirms it. The money is refunded and I take the next flight out in another hour. I chose to not tell the client and told them the flight was cancelled.

Unfortunately for me, there was another person in the meeting who caught the SpiceJet.

Needless to say, my mother is extremely hyper every time I am planning to catch a flight and my sister, simply cynical. I am looked at as the black sheep of the family. It didn’t help that once, when my sister and me were traveling together, I almost made us miss the flight by not wanting to arrive at the gate till the very end. I was under the impression they hadn’t started boarding yet, when in fact, it was already the last call.

Anyway, the reason I am mentioning all of this is because my sister missed a flight to Bangalore last week from Ahemdabad. She was planning to catch a 0650 hours flight after traveling 120 km from Baroda in the morning. She had to catch a flight to Mumbai to catch another one to Bangalore.

I was extremely understanding because I really do get it.

She has arrived.