With no real ground beneath one’s feet, all else loses meaning

Images of last week’s mid-air crisis of a Jet Airways flight reminded me of one summer evening when I was flying back to Delhi from Gorakhpur in an ATR carrier (AI 9810) — a small craft running on a twin-engine turboprop. The initial 10 minutes were fairly pleasant. It was late in the evening and there wasn’t much to appreciate in the sky, so I chose to sleep for a while. As I prepared to adjust my head over the tiny tray table, I felt myself flung up for about two seconds. Almost immediately after, I fell back into my seat. Perplexed, I was about to check if my seat belt was still fastened when I was up in the air again. This time, my head touched the ceiling.

By now I could only hear screaming passengers behind me — I was in the second row from the front. My eyes moved around looking for unperturbed faces, I couldn’t find any.

Suddenly, there was an eerie silence. There wasn’t any announcement by the crew preparing us for the worst or trying to calm us down either. I noticed an elderly woman shaking as she struggled to fasten her seat belt. A young girl to my left sat straight, holding the hands of her younger sibling. My gaze turned to the floor beneath and I discovered that my pen, identity card, phone and recorder were all down there.

“My phone, my phone,” I murmured. I didn’t have the strength to unfasten my seatbelt and collect my valuables. My co-passenger, a burly man who looked confident of overcoming the crisis with a Hanuman Chalisa, picked it all up for me.

As I put away my belongings into my handbag hurriedly, I recalled that my mother had warned me not to carry this tote bag without a zipper. It got me wondering for a bit — can mothers foresee things? I could almost hear her saying, “Ei jonyei toh bolechhilam, tora shunish na toh karur kotha... I told you so, but you people never pay heed to anyone.”

For about 10 minutes, there was no up-in-the-air moment but there were sudden drops, jerks, vibrations and swings. Or was I imagining things? As the aircraft kept circling around, the regrets swirled in my head — unnecessary arguments and pending apologies — I suppose, just the way they do in the last moments of one’s life.

From my window seat, I could only see a red light flashing on the wings of the aircraft. Did it mean that the end was near and that the plane would eventually crash? How would I jump off the aircraft at the time of the emergency landing? Why did I never bother to listen to the safety instructions decoded by flight attendants? If the plane crashes, would my colleagues in the media have to cover this accident? Would they be able to locate me in the debris? Would I be able to see my parents ever again? How would my parents cope with this sudden loss? Would this crisis turn out to be a hindrance for my sister who was about to fly off to Singapore, where she had taken up a new job?

As I was battling these thoughts, all at one go, I felt miserable that my Gorakhpur story was only half done and my deadline, two days later. I kept wondering if my sister would be able to access my mail and send the transcribed interview to my editor. That way I would have met the deadline of my 'last' story.

I realised this anxiety was making things worse for me. So I started to meditate, trying to connect with my inner self. After a while, a sense of graceful acceptance of the imminent end had set in. “If this is a closure, let it be, I am prepared,” I told myself. My head was not spinning anymore. I was much calmer inside, as if I suddenly conquered my fear. I looked out of the window again — the flashing red light didn’t bother me at all.

I craned my neck a bit to look down. Far off, beneath us, I could see some lights twinkling. On other days, I would have clicked a few photographs. That day, these things didn’t seem to matter anymore. In the meantime, the airplane’s cabin lights had been dimmed — final moments of descent.

The landing was surprisingly smooth. I assumed this was the happy ending to a traumatic flying experience.

I was wrong. Even now, four months later, the slightest air turbulence reminds me of the horrifying experience. But then, I immediately recall how my father was amused to see me scared and hear my presumably “near-death” experience. He simply laughed it off. Surely he didn’t want me to get affected by one bad experience of flying. I remember he said, “Ei rakom hotei pare, kintu eto bhoy pawar ki achhe?... It can happen, but why should you get so scared?