The USA Series, Part 1: The Flight of Fancy to the Land of Dreams

"Isn't that a coyote on the runway?" said the black-suited, bespectacled, tall gentleman seated next to me, pointing a long index finger at the creature running along the edge of 07C/25C, Runway North, Frankfurt am Main (I noticed the markings). "He might just take off before we do...uh...you do speak English, don't you?"

I turned towards the gentleman and my foggy brain said: Smile! So, I smiled. Beamed at him, in fact. "Yes that does look like a coyote," I said. "And I've heard of flying foxes, but those creatures never looked like this!" With a guffaw and a warm handshake, the introductions were completed, and I turned back to the runway as our Boeing 747 lined up on it. A hazy view of the terminal building danced outside the window. An air hostess hurriedly picked up the empty wrappers of Macademia nuts from our trays, which we folded and put into a little container in the armrest. Within a minute, the Lufthansa Boeing 747 gunned down the runway and took to the skies, turning westwards towards the land of dreams that all of us desis at least fantasize about with a sigh.

The first leg of my flight had indeed gone by like a fantasy ride, although I would have liked to have taken off from Mumbai international instead of Chennai, but what the heck. I was flying to the US of A, to the most powerful capital city in the world. On a G4 (United Nations issue) visa. By Lufthansa. Business class. Yessir, operational travel at the Bank meant Business class tickets!

I began living the dream as soon as I walked into the Business class section. Seats ensconced in little cubicles, complete with an inbuilt massage thing and a 170-degree recline, which moved without affecting the neighbor's seat. A pillow and a wrapping sheet neatly kept under the seat. A pouch containing a pair of socks, eye-blinds, earplugs, and toiletries on the seat. Wine, champagne, and Macademia nuts served to welcome you to Business class. What more could I have asked for! Well, I was hoping to see the Hindukush ranges, the Iranian snow-capped peaks, and the Turkish Anatolian mountains from the aircraft but so stupid of me; it was still night in these parts. I had to contend with the endless servings of Baileys Irish Cream, hors d'oeuvres, and hot meals, and "Transsiberian" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", which lulled me to sleep.

A funny, unusual thing happened that early morning in Frankfurt. The fog clearance system or something at the airport failed, because of which our flight was diverted to Leipzig. Just as it touched down in Leipzig, the captain announced that the system in Frankfurt was operational again. So we turned around at the end of the runway and took to the dark skies again.

It was still dark when the aircraft landed in Frankfurt, but there was a feeble promise of daylight. Fog blanketed the airport and its surroundings making visibility zero. All I saw as the Airbus A340-600 touched down was a highway and an astonishingly sleek black truck roll down that fantastically paved road. The aircraft took 25 minutes to taxi to the terminal building, before a faint glimpse of the glass facade of the airport terminal appeared. Aerobridges, like legs of a bug, in the livery of the Royal Bank of Scotland, protruded from the terminal building. At a signal from the air hostess, First and Business class passengers exited first. I was the fourth or fifth passenger to exit the aircraft. At the mouth of the aerobridge stood three police officers in complete German police overalls. One of them was much shorter than the other two, shorter than me too, and had a similar complexion as mine.
 
"Excuse me please, your passport and boarding pass?"
I was taken aback. The white, German cops or even this chap did not stop the rest of the passengers, so why me? I handed him my passport and boarding pass, watched him as he studied it, saw his brow raise - I'm sure it was the G4 stamp in the passport - and then took back the passport and boarding pass from him, which he handed with a "Sorry, have a good day!" whisper. I did not accept his apology. Bloody bugger, desi-origin fella! Only me he had to stop and ask for credentials! Only I looked like a terror suspect simply because I was as brown-skinned as he was? As I walked down the aerobridge and reached the terminal building, I muttered to myself through grinding teeth: Bhainchod!

The rest of my five hours in transit were beautiful, although there was that 35 minute walk from Terminal C to Terminal A, including a sky train ride. The automatic sky train is a two- or three-cart vehicle mounted on top of the terminal buildings. You don't even realize when you walk into it that it is a train, for during that 35-minute walk, you enter and exit several automatically swiveling glass-doors, and use several walkalators as well.

I spend five wondrous hours in Lufthansa's business lounge at Frankfurt International airport, chatting with my wife online for an hour, gorging on the breakfast spread that was easily any gastronome's delight, and downing endless amounts of vodka and tonic water. All this for free, and "free" anything for us Indians is a Heaven-sent. My head buzzed as I floated towards the gate area to board the next aircraft for the second haul of my journey, with a stupid smile plastered on my face. I was seated third from the nose of the gleaming Boeing 747 under the first class section, with a glass of champagne already waiting for me.

As we flew out of Germany came the drinks again. I refused but the pretty, Oriental air hostess insisted that I sample the Riesling Kabinett Trocken or the Champagne Jacquart Brut Mosaique. Who could ever decline such a pretty request! Both the middle-aged gentleman next to me and I reached out for the champagne, and the air hostess brought more before the last sip was downed. Akshay Kumar's antics in "Singh is King" kept me in splits, just like my father-in-law's comment did, to our neighbour in Chennai the previous night.

"My son-in-law is going to Amerikya! The World Bank is calling him there!" he said, and I could not help laughing out. Had my manager heard this, he would have fallen out of his high-back chair, laughing.

The hors d'oeuvres followed; I chose Thai Salad with fried Breast of Quail and Tamarind Sauce and a Soup of Parmigiano Reggiano with toasted Croutons. The route map on the common screen in the Business class section showed that our aircraft was flying over some-town-upon-Tyne, while Katrina Kaif sashayed across the Australian outback in a song sequence. Little did I realize then that this song was going to play upon my mind, and on my favorites playlist, for a long time.

I really do not remember when the food plates and the champagne glass was cleared, for I passed out just as the aircraft flew towards the Atlantic. When I woke up, we were flying over Canada close to the US border. A white carpet spread out below, polka-dotted by patches of brown. There was a live recording of Queen's tribute to Freddie Mercury that played on one of the channels. Luciano Pavarotti did an Italian cover of "Too Much Love Will Kill You" while I lunched on Fried Filet of Salmon with Sauce Hollandaise, Almond Broccoli and Parsley Potatoes. I chose the white Reisling as accompaniment. Just when I thought my stomach would erupt, the same Oriental air hostess brought us the final round of food: an assortment of cheese and dessert. Now I had no idea about different types of cheese. The only kinds I had eaten until then were Britannia sandwich cheese slices, Amul cheese spread, and Kraft cheese triangular cubes that my father brought from his various overseas trips. And none of these were present in the assortment: Bleu d’Auvergne, Le Coutances, Banon Goat Cheese wrapped in Chestnut Leaf, Reblochon, Rahmberg Cheese, a savory Cream Cheese, Grapes, Gouda, and toasted Pecan Nuts and Fig Mustard Sauce. Gouda? Did it have anything to do with the Gowda dynasty of Karnataka? You never know with these rich families in India. They could own anything anywhere and give it their name!

Ignoring the cheese, I settled for a dessert, a chocolate cake with cherry brandy Parfait and aged balsamic vinegar. It tasted like nothing I had had ever before. The end of my nonstop eating ever since I was airborne in Chennai was not the most fascinating, but every thing else until then definitely was. By the time I cleaned up that plate of dessert, the 747 began its descent into Dulles International Airport, Washington D.C.

After touchdown, as the aircraft taxied towards the terminal, I saw a British Airways Boeing land behind us on the runway. Again, the gentleman next to me broke the silence:
"So, your journey ends in DC or you are going elsewhere?"
Turned out that both of us were stopping in DC.
"Great! I've just returned home," he said. "Always feels great to be back home!"
"I've just left home behind," I said. "In India."
"I hope DC proves to be worth leaving home behind. You'll be studying at U of George Washington?"
Again, I let that impish smile return to my face. With slant eyes, I looked up at the suit-donned gentleman and said:
"No, I work for the World Bank. I'm going to work on a project over here for a few months." While his jaw remained dropped, I reached out to my wallet, pulled out my visiting card, and handed it over to him.
"It has my India office numbers listed, but there's my email address. Do write to me if you feel like it."

I opened the overhead storage rack, pulled out my backpack, and walked towards the exit, leaving the stupefied gentleman still holding my visiting card with both hands, reading my credentials on it: Knowledge Management Analyst, The World Bank.