Monday, July 13, 2009

SAFE ABROAD - NOT SO IN OUR OWN

A senior executive, holding the country head position and is a frequent flier. He was to take a flight to Zurich – Switzerland. It was a difficult task to get in the Mumbai Airport amidst the crowd. No ramps – You need to lift the Suitcases/Travel bags often – Even if the bags had the wheels. And needed to stand in the queue for a long time to show the things – Ticket, VISA, Passport, Currency (US$), etc. Since, he used to have the luxury of Driver/Office assistant to carry everything for him during routine days; it was difficult to handle on his own at the airport. Then, he needed to go for the security check. One has to be away from the hand baggage for about 5 minutes. Those were the moments of anxiety. Because the hand baggage has all the important documents, currency, tickets, hotel confirmations, etc. Finally, everything was over and he had boarded the flight without losing anything except his temper. It was indeed a very nice flight with good looking girls in skirts – Speaking in a Scandinavian Accent English – Helped him to keep his luggage on the overhead cabinet. He had good drink in the flight and had a great sleep.

Come Switzerland. Fantastic Airport. The luggage arrived in time. One need not lift it. Just one needed to stroll it all over the airport: From the luggage belt to the arrival hall to main hall. Everywhere the flooring was such that one could see and comb their hair. Of course, he oddly / hardly had some. He was mentally comparing Mumbai and thinking that this is the place anybody wanted to be in. He was enjoying the airport. He could straight away walk with luggage to the train station with the Trolley. To get the ticket, he needed to exchange his TC (Travelers Cheque) in to Swiss Franc. He got some 100US$ exchanged – enough for the train journey from Zurich to Uzwil (Elsewhere in Alps) and on the way refreshments.

He turned back to push his trolley to the station and found his hand baggage vanished in thin air.

The 12 Feet sign board in the arrival hall of Switzerland Airport read

“BEWARE OF THIEVES and TAKE CARE OF YOUR LUGGAGES “

3 comments:

  1. Wow, That is a fantastic posting. The message is very clear.

    This reminds me the lines of Tamil writer Mr. Prabanjan "There was no such golden period in the history like somebody claim Guptas period was a golden period. Always this country had poverty, thieves, bad government etc etc"

    ReplyDelete
  2. All that glitters is not gold, all dosen't is either not an iron..

    ReplyDelete

Photography

 Beginning of Photo Blogging from today 11th October 2021