Nov. 4. Early morning take off. I being me reached Chennai airport 4.5 hours in advance and checked in and all within minutes of the counters opening and then sat watching the swelling crowd around me.
On board, I got my favourite seat – a window seat - behind the left wing of the craft. Flight was good, food was lousy. Wonder why vegetarians are punished with bad food on flight. The brunch which came terribly late was what must qualify as the world’s most insipid and unappetising food ever – alu poha with – for god’s sake – some characterless chutney, two soggy puris and some black channa, bun, fruit salad and juice. The bun was the saving grace.
The last hour of the 4.5 hour flight was mind blogging. We flew over the desert. Acres and acres of it. Hundreds and thousands of unremitting acres of sand. From the altitude of the flight we saw the sands as gleaming black undulating dunes with patches of green here and there where there was probably a settlement of some sort. From that height we couldn’t make out if they were villages, towns or the glitzy cities of Arabia. But we could make out long winding water bodies snaking down here and there, and the emerald patches were always either lining them or at their very ends.
As ever, I marvelled at the inexorableness of life – given half a remote chance for survival, life forms will burst forth and hold their own, adapt themselves to however harsh conditions that are given them. But live they will. What a lesson in life. As we grew closer to Dubai and the flight dipped, I could see little tufts of green dotting the desert like pepper sprinkled on salad. Some plants, desert grass, cacti, alfalfa... I don’t know but wherever they found moisture, up they sprang, a triumph of life over aridity.
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