Karma!

Another flight and another set of experiences and again so different from the last and certainly heart warming.

We had just had our boarding passes checked to Coimbatore and I watched an older gentleman and a lady begin the descent down the ramp. The lady had a suitcase and a bag on one hand and another bag slung on the shoulder.

From her gait I could tell that it was not a comfortable descent so I offered to help her. No, in fact I asked  "can I help you with the bag"  she quickly said she would manage. Instinctively I knew that she would actually feel better if I helped so I said "it's ok please let me take them. It easy for me"

My instinct was right because without any protest she allowed me to take the luggage from her. And it WAS easy for me. I just had a backpack slung over my shoulder and another small bag.

I started walking slowly down the ramp behind them. Despite the fact that the lady was probably my age or maybe only slightly older, I felt protective as I saw her cautiously proceed. Something about the way she moved reminded of how Amma had distrusted these ramps.

It also occurred to me  that I wasn't being quite selfless. I was hoping the concept of good karma etc would hold good. Not many years from now, I'm likely to be in a similar situation, and I hoped a stronger possibly younger woman would step forward to help me too.  (ok wouldn't object to a nice man doing the same but that is a different conversation 😁)

I smiled at a completely random memory that popped up - amma always used the word karma in a not very positive sense .. "Kharrrmmmam" she would say when she wanted to exhibit disgust, dismay, disapproval... That word was quite versatile really.

My monkey brain was jerked back to the present as we were asked to stop and wait at the point before the aerobridge commenced.

The lady turned to me and said "the surface is so uneven" and I said in as reassuring a tone as possible "yes, even though we know our footwear won't slip, we still feel unsure,illai? "

She nodded her head and turned to move forward.

Throughout this exchange I noticed another lovely young girl watching this interaction between us. I was glad that she didn't get impatient with the slow progress the two people and I were making. I think she understood the importance of consideration and anyway, everyone knows that the plane is not going to take off without us, right?

Wrong - two young men obviously weren't convinced and they tried to dart forward, so they could get ahead of the gentleman and the lady. They misjudged the gap between the lady and me and had to shuffle to a stop to my left, just half a foot ahead of me.  "I could hear ammas voice in my head -" khharrrrrrmam! "
And I heard it exactly the way she would have said it - she would drag out the word "kharrrrrrrrmam"... With the audio like a sine curve 😁

I stepped into their personal space, ready to intimidate them with my trademark snake eye contact. But my body language alone sufficed. They meekly went back to their place in the queue behind me.

Honestly! What is it with some people? What is the need to display such inconsiderate impatience ? Of course the poor intimidated young men must have thought the same of me 😁but shhhh!

While I was congratulating myself on this little victory, my backpack slipped off my shoulder. Without thinking, I angled my elbow so I could hold it in place and I continued walking. It was uncomfortable but manageable. And that's when history repeated itself. Well, the immediate history I mean

The lovely young lady who had been watching my exchange earlier, stepped to my side and said something about my backpack. I thought she was offering to carry it for me and I quickly said "thank you it's ok" . She then repeated and this time I heard what she was saying"let me help you move the backpack on to your shoulder " or something along those lines. And without waiting, just like I had done earlier for the other lady, she reached out and helped lift the back pack off my elbow and settled it back on my shoulder.

I smiled at her and said thank you and my heart smiled too. I felt all warm and fluffy inside as I savoured this incident and the run up to it. There ARE considerate people out there too.

In fact MANY more than I thought. For when I got off the plane, the indigo staff had already stepped forward to help the lady with her luggage, while on the bus another passenger waited patiently for her to board and two other people offered their seats to the them.
The fluffy happy feeling blossomed even more inside me.

I didn't have to wait too long did I? The positivity chain is well and alive as is  instant karma .

Or in the case of the impatient young men instant kharrrrrrrrmam! 

Tough lessons Gentle Reminders

 It has been 8 months since my last blog post and this one is about travel again. But it is in a very different tone from the last.

Those that follow me on Social media would have seen my post about the Lufthansa shenanigans due to a system error.

Long story short, they refused to let me board despite me having a valid travel authorisation for Canada, claimed the Canadian government site to check validity was down, and refused to accept they were wrong because I was able to check validity online and show them that the site was up. Top it up with absolute apathy from some of the desk staff, it was not a pleasant experience at all. 

The result was an almost 8 hour layover in Frankfurt, with a flight to Toronto instead of Montreal and a connecting flight to Montreal that landed at half past twelve in the night ! The same travel documents that were not acceptable suddenly became acceptable by magic! And it doesn't end there.

I got on board the flight to Toronto and was about to slip into an exhausted sleep when a loud scream pierced the cabin! There was a woman screaming "get offa me..Get OFFA me" repeatedly and I jumped up and sat with my heart pounding. Were we being hijacked? Were we under attack? My sleep deprived brain struggled to comprehend the situation as she continued screaming. I then heard one of the cabin crew yelling "calm down . Calm DOWN!" and then "if you do not get up , I am going to restrain your legs. YOUR CHOICE" 

What I could eventually piece together was that it was a passenger and she had needed to be restrained for some reason. I spent the remaining part of the flight nervously bracing myself for her to break her restraints and come charging. We landed in Toronto and had to wait for her to be taken away by the authorities before we could deplane and I wondered if that meant I was going to miss the connection to Montreal. 

Of course all of us were rubber necking! Trying to see who it was that had caused such a commotion. I was miffed when the man behind me stood up to get a better look at what was happening and completely blocked my view! But even I draw the line at blatantly gawking at someone's misery and so I decided to grab the remnants of my dignity and pulled myself together to focus on making  the connecting flight. Which I did. 

A last minute gate change later, a delay, an aero bridge refusing to connect to the plane, here I am in Montreal Airport in the dead of the night. 

Since I was taking the train to Ottawa which I missed because of Lufthansa, I am now typing this as I wait out the 6  hours for my train.

Around me are weary travelers - and I seem to be the only one active and alert. Maybe because of the packet of chips and bar of dark chocolate that I have devoured :) Or maybe because I had been trained over the past 24 hours to expect something or the other to go wrong. So, I kept moving and stretching and doing light mobility moves.

At one point, I was sitting on a bench leaning back and doing some core exercises. And before you ask me, No I don't care what people think of a woman doing ab workouts at 2 am in the morning in a deserted airport. 

A border control agent walking past me, stopped and exclaimed "Oh my! you are strong!" I grinned at her and said "Just trying to keep myself awake" She raised her eyebrows and said "I want to stay awake I have coffee. But you are really strong" she gave me a thumbs up sign as she walked away and I felt a warmth seep into me. A compliment from a random stranger again brought back the same message I had been receiving repeatedly throughout this jinxed journey.

I thought of the staff from Air Canada in Frankfurt - one who took me to the Lufthansa desk to help and the other at the Air Canada lounge.

Jessica said "I appreciate how calm you were through out the process". She had said that just as I was about to burst into tears out of sheer frustration at the way Lufthansa staff were treating me. One minute  later and  I would have been bawling my eyes out and  that compliment probably would not have come my way. :) 

When again 5 hours of waiting later,  the Lufthansa system acted funny and the lady at the Air Canada lounge started making calls to help me out. It got sorted and I was about to burst into tears out of relief again, she reached out to hold both my hands and said "look at me , you are healthy and you are fine. You have your ticket, yes there is a delay but you are fine" In  a flash, my attack of the sniffles vanished. And almost immediately I was smiling and joking again with her. 

And now this customs agent reminding me that I was strong.

I love these incidents for one thing. We may say many things, share our approach and philosophy and they might be very good ones that have worked for us in the past. But every now and then we tend to forget our our own lessons. In these three incidents was the gentle reminder of my own note to self...remember I say "when things are going wrong, don't forget that other things are going right"

You need to have the reserve to bounce back - which I do. But I can always do with some help at the right moment.

I think it was these three women who shored up my strength. Who reminded me of my own Note to Self. 

Sometimes it is good to be reminded about what you already know.