It was October 1996, when I traveled in an airplane for the very first time. Invited for a final round of interview at Arvind Mills Marketing HQ in Bangalore, took the Indian Airlines Bombay – Bangalore flight. I distinctly recollect how stupid I must have appeared since I was utterly clueless about the process involved in air travel- check in, security check, boarding, seat belts, on board food service etc. So clueless in fact that I almost tripped backwards on my maiden escalator journey at Mumbai airport, one hand holding my bag, another hand in my pocket. I realized later that those not familiar to escalators should wisely hold the side rail and not try to be a style-bhai
It was not until September of 1998 that I took my first international flight – Air India , what else ,, to Bangkok , where else. It was an tour sponsored by Philips to those sales officers who had exceeded their sales target.(Talk about an incentive ) And the only time I have ever travelled first class was on 16th January 2003, when GE Capital, who had just hired me and wanted me to join on that particular day since an new-hire orientation batch was kicking off and with no economy class ticket left, they upgraded me to First Class, Bangalore to Hyderabad, Sahara Airlines.
Why do I write all this today, because since those days, I must have traveled a bit,, I never expected that I might end up looking clumsy yet again. But that is precisely what happened yesterday when I got (miraculously) upgraded to business class on Jet Airways flight from London to Mumbai. Not used to travel is such luxury I looked like a square peg in a round hole, more on this amusing episode later
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