Luna to London

Luna to London

Here I am. Sitting on my cosy bed in Ipswich. The town is situated in Suffolk county at 2 hrs drive from London. Its 8 pm local time and I have already had two pegs of teachers brand , a Scotland made whisky. The sun has not yet set here and light is gradually falling down. So, all in all it’s a perfect time to sit back and reflect as it would be exactly one week after a few hours since my arrival in UK and this is the first time I have got time to do so.

It all started last Friday when I was completely at sixes and sevens packing my stuff for what was my first visit to UK or should I say my first international flight. Somehow with assistance of 4 others dada,vaini, sagar and shripad I finally limited my luggage to specified 20 kgs. It was raining in Mumbai and with experience of 26/7
I decided to reach early in the morning for my jet airways flight at 12.45 pm IST from chatrapati international airport which, as it went, turned out to be a completely wrong decision which I won’t say is rare in my case. I would not have mind it had shri not been with me. Poor fellow, we slept at 00.30 hrs on Saturday morning and got up at 2 when the cab driver gave us a call. We collected ourselves along with the luggage and got down. It was continuously raining that day. I, irresistably, took an hour’s sleep on our express highway drive. We reached Mumbai at 6 am sharp and that was when the cab-driver asked me when was my flight. I, reluctantly, told him that its at 12.45 pm and as expected, he lectured me on how we could have left at 4 am and still could have comfortably made it well before the prescribed check-in time. The policemen at entrance did not let us in seeing our flight time. We were left with having a breakfast at the untidy airport restaurant and cursing the AAI. Somehow we managed to enter in at 7.30 am after exploring all details of airport exterior. We waited in for about two and half hours before my check-in time.

Finally, I checked in at 9.30 am and went through all the checks and all. I was seeing the planes with such proximity for the first time in my life. The announcements started sounding about boarding the plane. Mine was a jet airways flight, no. 9w 118.
With all the enthusiasm and excitement, I boarded the plane.

It took the plane about 20 mins to take-off. We were receiving the instructions from the captain from time to time. I was waiting for it to take off as I could see it move with its spreaded wings. It started running on highway and took off after attaining the required velocity. The feeling in your stomach as soon as the wheels leave the ground is like the one when you sit in a roller-coaster or something. I was making all the efforts that I could to get the aerial glimpse of Arabian sea as mine was not the window seat. Still, I managed to get the same and was having the feeling of eternal bliss. The plane was taking on higher heights with the outside temperatures rapidly falling, as I could see on the screens in front of us.
It attained the height of 36000 fts and was then completely straightened. The handsome stewards and tantalisingly beautiful air-hostesses started their duty of serving the commuters with a pleasant smile on their face.

Man, I just could not believe it and found myself in the seventh heaven, which, I then came to know was at 36000 ft from ground. It was exactly the way I had dreamt it to be when I used to see the planes flying and taking on the heights in the sky from my terrace in Nagpur. A guy who used to go to college on his 49.75 cc LUNA TFR, which used to complain climbing even the slope on his way to college,was climbing far greater heights in the sky. The ambience was perfect. 36000 ft, for 9 hrs non-stop, covering 7500 kms spanning 3 continents, with outside temperature dipping to as low as -57 deg celcius and exquisite quisine being served by charming air-hostesses. What better could the heaven offer ? I thanked Wilber and Oliver wright for their invention from the bottom of my heart and was reminiscing my past. At 5.55 pm BST we got the instructions to tighten our seat belts as we were ready to land. A nice and sunny weather in London welcomed us.

The journey from Luna to London had been a memorable one ! Nevertheless, I made it a point to remind myself that there is a new journey which begins from London. Let us see where it leads.….

Andy