Journey to UK (Part-I)

September 29, 2007, Saturday, Morning 5:30 am… Very unusually, my phone started ringing with screen showing name ‘Sanjay Sai’… My brain talked to itself, “Oh Shit! I have flight to Bombay at 6:50 am and then to London, and I am traveling along with Sanjay.” It took some another 5 minutes to grasp the situation and I realized I hadn’t completed packing also and I had only 10 minutes left. I can’t recall my thoughts at that time, because I couldn’t take their back-up. I am yet to figure out what's so special in Einstein’s saying, “Time is relative”. This is a well known fact, "In a same examination, time is fast for a person who knows answers and clock doesn't move at all for a person who's looking here and there." Clock was sprinting faster than Carl-Lewis. I packed everything I could. With a record time for myself in getting ready, I reached airport in time. I thought, “Now, everything will be fine.” But HE/SHE had different plans for me.

Flight IT102 (Kingfisher) started at right time, supposed to reach Bombay at 0810 hours. At 0800 hours, I cursed captain for making the announcement, “Ladies and Gentlemen!(I wonder why everyone use that phrase, aren't ladies gentle? infact, they are more gentle than men I guess. anyways.) There is a bad news. Mumbai weather has gone bad and we don’t have permission to land. We can’t say how much time will it take to clear and we don’t have sufficient fuel to stay in air for a long time. We have to go to Hyderabad or Bangalore to refuel. Since most of people are from Bangalore, we have decided to go to Bangalore. Let me assure you that no other flight is also landing on Bombay. Let me assure also that we’ll reach Mumbai as soon as weather conditions improve……” It came as a real shock because reaching bombay-bangalore-bombay was about to take 3 hours, and we were running against time. Thankfully, we landed at Mumbai at around 1230 after going back to Bangalore, getting refueled, weather permitting our entry to Mumbai. (I thank all Air Travel Control Room people for re-scheduling the plan for our flight.)

I had plans to meet Prof. V.M. Gadre, Prof. Sebestian and some of my friends at IIT Bombay, had I reached in time. Like everything HE/SHE had already decided for me, we just reached in time for boarding BA143 flight from Mumbai-London Heathrow at 1310 hours. Called a lot of friends, family before flying, and while with a brief chit-chat with Lord, the flight took off at 1310 hours from Mumbai. Felt relaxed after a lot of time of worries, but then 'All is well that ends well' was fitting suitably here.