Pehli Udaan

A story by Samyak Shah

The title loosely translates to “First flight”. A metaphorical indicator of new opportunities taking you to new heights, taking you to new destinations from the roads not explored. What prompted me to write this one is because of an anecdote my father shared with me recently. He is a frequent flyer and honestly speaking, when you do one activity for a long time, you’re bound to get bored. This is what the situation is with him because he has been doing this to and fro in aircrafts for almost 5 years now. And he has many amazing stories and incidents to share [if asked].

Today, he narrated an incident which took me back to the time to 2008 when I visited Mumbai for going through admission processes in many schools. That was the first time I sat in an aircraft and my excitement knew no bounds. Who isn’t excited about the fact that a carefully put together construction of a steel cage can lift you above thousands of feet in air and make you experience an ear blinding time. I was never the naughty or the mischievous child, but I sure was one for the airport security, because I decided to break the security check for seeing whether the washrooms in the airport were similar to the ones they showed in movies. YES. 2-3 ground level security personnel chased me on the washroom entrance. Ah what a first flight it was. The excitement the experience holds, waiting for the cage to lift you up from the ground, as your face gets stuck on the little rounded rectangle window as we slowly take off.

My dad booked an alpha or A seat [which is a window seat, for the ones who don’t know] and next to him, sat a girl who was around my age [17-19 years] and this was her first time sitting in a flight. Unfortunately, she was separated from her father as he sat on a beta or B seat in a seat number behind her. She constantly kept looking back from the left and the right, excitedly asking whether he saw how the flight was swiftly moving with those little radium flashy lights leaving them. This was the first flight for both of them, and honestly I understood how excited a person is experiencing something that is still considered to be some sort of a luxury service.

“She constantly kept looking behind to her father, then tried to look outside the window to see if there was anything worth seeing” my dad said, laughing lightly on the innocence of the girl “I was a bit agitated by a half an hour, so I asked her once I got an opportunity whether this was her first time sitting in an airplane, to which she gleefully replied a big, smiling YES”. The flight duration was around an hour and half. Dad checked how much travel time was remaining. When the pilot announced that the flight was right on time and within 20 minutes, he just got up from his seat and asked the girl whether she wanted to sit on the window seat, and like an innocent child, her eyes widened and she requested if that was possible, to which he smilingly nodded and what seemed like a golden moment came into her life as she shifted to the alpha seat.

“Till the time the flight reached the airport and the bus assembled on the ground, the girl didn’t move her eyes from the window, capturing every moment of this experience. We don’t exactly value this mode of transport because we’ve gotten used to it, but you will never understand how amazing it felt to see her smiling from ear to ear, breaking into little fits of giggles as she saw the flight have a touchdown on the runway. I’ll never forget how amazing it felt when her father thanked me on her behalf for allowing her to exchange seats”.

I have no clue who that girl is or what her name is, all I want to tell you is that may your life enrich you with more such amazing experiences and may you get people like my father who allow you to enjoy those moments to the fullest. This was her first flight, her pehli udaan and no matter how clichéd it may sound, but as I heard this tale and I decided to pen this down, I had light tears emerging because kindness is possibly the best thing you can gift someone.