Driving in the right lane - Chapter 2

French flies

I am 24 years old. I have spent at least 2500 hours of my life and about 50000 bucks of my dad’s hard earned money in the train – with an undying hope of meeting a pretty girl. I clearly remember the days when I had just put down the comic book and started to get aroused by the fairer sex and their vivid portrayal in Debonair. I used to pray for some girl to come flying out of the Playboy centerfold and into my train compartment every time I traveled. With no luck, I started toning down my prayer notes to read ‘any girl in the same bogey as me’ and ‘any girl in this train’ and finally ‘at least the same station?...Please!’. But as they say, if wishes were horses, I would be riding one today – pun intended.

I had assumed that the bad luck would go away with higher education. Apparently, it doesn’t. Here I was - an MBA, with a decent paying job and an air ticket which cost more than my total train cost till date. But, unfortunately, there were still no signs of life on planet Venus. All I could see is a few Mars inhabitants, who might have had the same hopes growing up as me, probably had made similar assumptions and may be now, were as disappointed as I was.

The shrill sound of crying, coming from a 2 year old infant broke the numbing silence in my head. And there she was. The angel, I was looking for all my life, was dressed in white and spoke in French. I knew then why it was called the language of love. She took the child from his mother’s arms and put him to sleep by making him feel cozy in her arms. Tears started rolling down from my eyes automatically, not because I was seeing a beautiful moment of magic being performed by the woman on a child, but in sheer hope that even I would be put to blissful sleep by her. I guess she didn’t even acknowledge my existence. In a few moments, her perfume started to fade as she moved away and shut the curtains on the doorway separating my isle from the staff seats. I realized then that girls are indeed from another world. They come close to you, make you fall in love with them by casting a magical spell and then walk back to their world and draw the curtains, leaving you to wipe your own tears. But we men never learn and start thinking of what went wrong and how we could strike gold with the next girl that comes our way. I did the same. “Could it have worked out better if I spoke French?”, I thought. My head didn’t waste any time to reply, “No! Now stop kidding yourself and sleep. At least avoid the jetlag.”

I woke up next morning at the sound of the flight captain making us aware of our coordinates. “We are cruising at an altitude of 50000 feet and traveling at about 500 mph”, he said. “The temperature outside is -35 degrees Celsius. We will be reaching Paris at 8:10 am local time which is about 2 hours away from now. We will be serving breakfast now. Enjoy your flight.”
“Enjoy the flight?”, I wondered. “How can I?” I could reach only one conclusion with all this information. “I need to keep my fingers crossed for 2 more hours and hope that the flight doesn’t hit a storm, or a pigeon for that matter. Because if it does, I would start falling from an altitude of 50000 feet and my death will be caused not by hitting the ground at a speed higher than 500 mph, but by hypothermia, setting in as I make my way down, freezing at a temperature of -35 degrees Celsius.” I was jealous of the guy next to me, who was snoring away, without any idea of the deadly possibilities this flight had on offer. “Ignorance”, I thought, “is bliss indeed”.

Thank God, breakfast was on its way. I could stop thinking about my imminent death only with the aroma of coffee, vermicelli upma and medu vadaa with sambaar. These South Indian delicacies were sharing the tray with their continental counterparts – croissant, brownie and orange juice. I am generally a fast eater. But on this occasion, I took my time to savor every scoop of vermicelli and each sambaar dip, coming to terms with the fact that after this meal I would enjoy an Indian breakfast in about 2 months time.

By the time I finished eating, we were only about an hour away from Paris, the land of love. I had a 4 hour waiting period at CDG for the connecting flight to JFK. “That should give me enough time to pass my judgment about the beauty of French women.”, I said to myself, “and may be even talk to a few”. I did doubt my Alliance Francaise credentials though.

“Bonjour Monsieur.”
“Bonjour Mademoiselle.”
“Cava?”
“Cava Bien Merci. Je mapelle Adarsh. Je suis Indian.”

These sentences, in this order, constituted my entire French vocabulary. Back in school, I was also taught ‘Je suis etudiante’ which meant ‘I am a student’. But till today, I haven’t been able to find the French equivalent of a ‘Business Consultant’. No wonder it is a tough job.

The Charles De Gaulle airport is a city in itself. I started laughing, thinking about the possible condition of the traffic plagued airport road, if an airport of such large dimensions existed in Bangalore. And with that I had already started missing my life in Bangalore and the frustrations that came with it. After killing time with a few episodes of South Park, I boarded the flight to New York. The same thoughts came back to me - only this time it was another air hostess, another flight captain doing his little presentation, and a different fair skinned neighbor, unaware of the risks of flying. “It is really a small world”, I thought. “Only the faces change. The roles remain the same.”