I believe that happiness is a choice. Like with any other big choice in life, choosing to be happy is very difficult. Not many are conscious enough to be able to make a conscious choice of happiness. I sometimes wonder what is the process of choosing to be happy. Is it like shaking oneself out of an illusion of spontaneity to a deliberate 'happy' approach while choosing one's reactions to various situations. Or is there something like truly spontaneous which gives the maximum happiness? Or is spontaneity an illusion? Can one be spontaneously happy? Is happiness a feeling one derives out of behaving in the most instinctively spontaneous manner? Can one consciously choose to follow one's instincts, while making a choice is itself the opposite of letting the instincts govern?
I now remember the name of the nice and senti English movie I watched during the Mumbai-London flight. It is 'The Pursuit of Happiness'.
Though London was for transit, I had a good 7 hours before my next flight. Though I couldn't go out of the Airport, I decided to use this time in the best way possible to get a feel of London. I had heard a lot about London - it's a beautiful city, Shakespere used to live here, so did Katrina Kaif, BBC comes from here, GMT, Bukingham Palace...
From what I saw of London from the air before landing, I felt that london was quite a well planned city. The roads were nicely laid out and the buildings were quite distant from each other. It looked quite empty actually, though I now know better how empty most foreign lands seem to us Indians when we compare them to cities in India. The flight landed after it gave me a few minutes for seeing London from above. It was cold out side. The temperature was 9 Degrees Centigrade. One interesting fact is that it gets colder as the aeroplane rises higher as shown by the LCD. Confirmed what I had studied years back in school.
The Airport is called the London Heathrow Airport. I was a carrying a bag with my laptop in it. I hung it on my shoulders and walked out of the plane saying "Thanks" to the Air Hostess before she did. Since Jet Airways is Indian, most of those who were in my flight were Indian. But even outside, I saw Indians everywhere. The uniform-wala guys and many people working at the Airport looked Indian.
Though I saw everyone walking in one particular direction, I wasn't sure what people who were there for transit had to do, since obviously for most of the people, London was the final International destination. I went to a uniform-wala standing at a corner, told him I was going to America by an American Airlines flight, and asked him where I needed to go. He asked me to follow the directions shown the boards with "Flight Connections" written over them. Later I found that even in the US, they use the same term - "Flight Connections". It must be a standard term used all over the world in Airports.
I had to walk a long distance. And for those who had difficulty walking or for those who were too lazy to walk, there were long stretches in between where one had to just stand and the floor moved - like a long tread mill. It was good, I tried it a few times. You walk on it, you move even faster.
I reached the dead end where "Flight Connections" people made a long queue that turned around a corner to somewhere that I could not see at that time. As the line moved ahead I came to know that I was going to undego another security check. Ahead of me, I saw people removing their shoes. I felt a sudden fit of happiness that very moment. The reason - something made me take off my torn & stinky socks before I got off the place and wear the shoes directly. I did keep the socks in my pocket coz I felt it was not appropriate to leave such socks in the Aeroplane. And now, I could take off my shoes without getting embarrassed. And I also felt that my brand new Woodland Shoes on bare feet would in fact look cool as my feet would get undressed and redressed before and after the security check - of course if someone bothered to look at them.
There was one old lady in the queue who was going to Canada and had come from India. She was literally in tears coz her next flight did not allow 2 bags to be taken inside as hand-baggage. She had 2 because her previous flight from India had allowed. Different Airports have different rules. She was told by a uniform-wala while she was in the queue that she could not take along 2 bags and had to do something about it. She started screaming at him - why was she not told about this in India, why she always preferred some other Airline, why she took her laptop with her in one of the bags, why she could have avoided that if she hadn't listened to her kids, etc etc. The uniformwala was an Indian guy with a nice beard. He didn't belong to any of the Airlines. He spoke in a British accent and tried to calm the woman by giving her various options like contacting the Airline Staff and asking them to do something about the extra bag, tying the 2 bags together somehow to make them look like one etc etc. He ended every sentence with "Darling". Reminded me of "Mona Darling".
Don't know how the woman's 2-bags problem was resolved, coz she stayed back continuing to argue and the queue moved ahead. I finished my security check - laptops have to be taken out of the bag and placed for scanning - I went ahead to find a huge waiting area - a big shopping mall really - with hundreds of people all over - waiting - and I became one of them - for the next 6 hours.
To Be Continued...
I now remember the name of the nice and senti English movie I watched during the Mumbai-London flight. It is 'The Pursuit of Happiness'.
Though London was for transit, I had a good 7 hours before my next flight. Though I couldn't go out of the Airport, I decided to use this time in the best way possible to get a feel of London. I had heard a lot about London - it's a beautiful city, Shakespere used to live here, so did Katrina Kaif, BBC comes from here, GMT, Bukingham Palace...
From what I saw of London from the air before landing, I felt that london was quite a well planned city. The roads were nicely laid out and the buildings were quite distant from each other. It looked quite empty actually, though I now know better how empty most foreign lands seem to us Indians when we compare them to cities in India. The flight landed after it gave me a few minutes for seeing London from above. It was cold out side. The temperature was 9 Degrees Centigrade. One interesting fact is that it gets colder as the aeroplane rises higher as shown by the LCD. Confirmed what I had studied years back in school.
The Airport is called the London Heathrow Airport. I was a carrying a bag with my laptop in it. I hung it on my shoulders and walked out of the plane saying "Thanks" to the Air Hostess before she did. Since Jet Airways is Indian, most of those who were in my flight were Indian. But even outside, I saw Indians everywhere. The uniform-wala guys and many people working at the Airport looked Indian.
Though I saw everyone walking in one particular direction, I wasn't sure what people who were there for transit had to do, since obviously for most of the people, London was the final International destination. I went to a uniform-wala standing at a corner, told him I was going to America by an American Airlines flight, and asked him where I needed to go. He asked me to follow the directions shown the boards with "Flight Connections" written over them. Later I found that even in the US, they use the same term - "Flight Connections". It must be a standard term used all over the world in Airports.
I had to walk a long distance. And for those who had difficulty walking or for those who were too lazy to walk, there were long stretches in between where one had to just stand and the floor moved - like a long tread mill. It was good, I tried it a few times. You walk on it, you move even faster.
I reached the dead end where "Flight Connections" people made a long queue that turned around a corner to somewhere that I could not see at that time. As the line moved ahead I came to know that I was going to undego another security check. Ahead of me, I saw people removing their shoes. I felt a sudden fit of happiness that very moment. The reason - something made me take off my torn & stinky socks before I got off the place and wear the shoes directly. I did keep the socks in my pocket coz I felt it was not appropriate to leave such socks in the Aeroplane. And now, I could take off my shoes without getting embarrassed. And I also felt that my brand new Woodland Shoes on bare feet would in fact look cool as my feet would get undressed and redressed before and after the security check - of course if someone bothered to look at them.
There was one old lady in the queue who was going to Canada and had come from India. She was literally in tears coz her next flight did not allow 2 bags to be taken inside as hand-baggage. She had 2 because her previous flight from India had allowed. Different Airports have different rules. She was told by a uniform-wala while she was in the queue that she could not take along 2 bags and had to do something about it. She started screaming at him - why was she not told about this in India, why she always preferred some other Airline, why she took her laptop with her in one of the bags, why she could have avoided that if she hadn't listened to her kids, etc etc. The uniformwala was an Indian guy with a nice beard. He didn't belong to any of the Airlines. He spoke in a British accent and tried to calm the woman by giving her various options like contacting the Airline Staff and asking them to do something about the extra bag, tying the 2 bags together somehow to make them look like one etc etc. He ended every sentence with "Darling". Reminded me of "Mona Darling".
Don't know how the woman's 2-bags problem was resolved, coz she stayed back continuing to argue and the queue moved ahead. I finished my security check - laptops have to be taken out of the bag and placed for scanning - I went ahead to find a huge waiting area - a big shopping mall really - with hundreds of people all over - waiting - and I became one of them - for the next 6 hours.
To Be Continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment