The (Un) Forgettable Journey

Ok that (^^) is the official title. The unofficial title to this story is :

SHIT HAPPENS

The day of my departure to US dawned. It was finally time to bid goodbye to my sweet heart homeland. The pain could not have been aggravated by anything other than THE horrendous journey back to US. The flight from Mumbai to Kuwait was smooth sailing (except at the security point, some jackass "somehow" thought my laptop bag to be his and was ready to go until I stopped him). I had a change in flight at Kuwait which went smoothly too. And then, someone in the universe conspired to have a little sadistic pleasure by ruining my day.

After the takeoff, I plugged in the earphones into the system and - TADA! The audio system was not working. The world crashed before my eyes and on the screen in front of me, I tried to imagine myself sitting for 12 hours without entertainment ! Well, flight journey is already boring and this was unbearable! But anyway, I found some relief by talking to my co passengers (one of them had the audio working while the other, like me did not. Kudos Kuwait Airlines!). Still not that bad. I somehow counted the hours and finally landed at NYC after hovering in the air for some time.

The bad news was that flight was delayed by one hour! I had a domestic flight to catch from NYC to Buffalo in about two hours and I had to do immigration, customs and then check in, security for the next flight! Well one might think two hours would still be comfortable. But then the worst part of the journey begins! Long queues at immigration is not a new thing. But its bad when you have a big family standing in front of you right in front of the desk. Still not that bad, the officer took his sweet time doing the formalities, and then when I was just about to put a step forward, he says "I'll be back, please wait" and went away somewhere. I was like "whaaaat?". I looked at the watch and it was not at all a good sight. After five minutes or so the officer returned. I rushed to the desk and immediately told him that I have a flight to catch. He did not waste time and did the finger print and photo formalities quickly. Thanking him, I rushed to claim my baggage.

After failing to spot my bags for ten minutes (!!) I realized I was looking at bags which I had already seen go past before! Disaster! I was about to panic when I thought some jackass may have thought my bag to be his, taken it off and did not care to put it back on the rollers! I was right ! For some unknown reason there was a huge array of bags lined up in other corner and luckily I found my bags there. I had no time to waste. I literally ran with the heavy(what do you expect when returning from India?) bags. JFK is quite huge and I was running all around to find the Jet Blue check in desk. I was wearing a leather jacket because there was no space in the bags! I was sweating like anything and a couple of friendly Americans who saw me rushing asked me if I was okay. Somehow I reached the check in desk. After checking in, I proceeded to the security check.

**TIME FOR FLASHBACK**

It was my last week in Bangalore and some damn guy in our PG gifted me the conjunctivitis virus. And it was really really bad (I still have a scanty red area in my eyes). And till the time of departure I had a substantial redness in eyes.

**BACK TO SECURITY CHECK**

Imagine the condition I was in - totally tired and frustrated with the long journey, completely drenched in sweat, with a leather jacket on, on a rather hot day and with red eyes ! My turn at security comes up and GUESS WHAT? The alarm goes off detecting something in my handbag! I was checked too, with the metal detector and it beeped! It was because of the gold chain that I was wearing around my neck. So I held it in hand and took it a bit higher. The detector still beeped! The officer asks "Do you have a heart pacemaker?" I was like "Hell no !", though my heart was pacing a bit already because of the time all this was taking! All this was enough to take me for a personal security check. There it beeped again! I then decided to take off the chain completely, rather than just holding it high. It worked! After checking me thoroughly with detector 3-4 times, I thought it was over. NO! Because the baggage alarm went off, the officers searched my handbags completely. Then I was questioned about my red eyes and why I was wearing a leather jacket on a hot day."Are you trying to hide something that you are wearing that jacket?" I told them I got hurt while playing cricket (:D) and that I did not have space in my bags for the jacket. Well that wasn't enough. The male officer would not stop asking questions. I had to finally tell them I have a flight to catch in fifteen minutes. Then finally the female officer asked him to quit and finally they thanked me for "my patience". After packing the handbag in anyway I could, I ran like crazy to the boarding gate just in time. No wonder I was the last passenger to board the flight.

Finally I sat in my seat. Ready to take off. And guess what I had in front of me for my one and a half hour journey - a fully functional entertainment system with all TV channels. Taking a deep breath, I purchased a can of coke and tuned into Man vs Wild. And that my friends, is how I survived in the wild ! Phew.