My London experience

My ‘direct’ flight from Madras to London went to Kuwait, Cairo, Italy, France and so many places! Flying from London to Bombay took only eight and a half hours. This way it took ten or eleven hours.

When the plane finally arrived in London, the equipment was not functioning properly, so we had to come down from the plane using ordinary stairs, not a covered walkway. It was really raining hard. The workers had umbrellas, but for us there were no umbrellas. They said that if we wanted umbrellas, we would have to wait for a few minutes. Who wanted to wait? After such a long flight, nobody wanted to stay on board. The workers were saying to be very careful and to hold onto the rail.

In order to make my connection to New York, I had to go to Terminal 4. There I had to get a new boarding pass. Terminal 4 was quite far from the place where we had arrived. A few other passengers were with me. The officials said that within fifteen minutes a coach would come to take us to Terminal 4. The first coach we missed. Then we waited another fifteen or twenty minutes. I said, “What can we do?” There were three of us who wanted to make this connection and we had very little time. About half an hour later the coach came, and we three entered. We went to Terminal 4, which was quite far. By walking it would have been impossible, and it was raining.

People say that the British are very, very polite, but I think politeness is found in the dictionary only. Our waiting area was empty. When I went to the man who was supposed to take care of us, he said, “Just a minute,” and he left. After five or ten minutes he had not returned. His jacket was still on the seat but he was not coming back.

I did not know how much time I had. Already my plane from India had been late. I could have only half an hour left at most before the flight left. I was so sad. I said, “Everywhere I will have this kind of fate.”

On the other side, it said ‘First Class’. The man who was taking care of first class said to me, “Now that there is no passenger here, you can come.”

I went to him very thankfully. He said, “I can give you the boarding pass, but I am unable to give you the seat number.”

I said, “It is only half an hour before the plane departs.”

He said, “I am sorry, but I cannot give you a seat number. For a seat number you will have to go to gate number 10, and they will give it to you.”

Gate 10 was quite far. I walked and walked and went to gate 10. Although it was clearly written gate 10, I saw that nobody was there. I said, “The plane will leave in half an hour, but nobody is here. How could it be? He definitely told me gate 10.

I suspected that something had gone wrong. Usually I never read the schedules on the television screen. This time I said, “Let me look for the British Airways plane that goes to New York.” On the screen it said that the gate was number 4. I said, “I have been sent to gate 10. Now I have to go to gate 4, which is so far away. Here I am in trouble.”

Luckily, an airport official arrived. I said to her, “I was sent to gate 10 and there is nobody here. Now the screen says it is gate 4.”

The lady said, “Yes, we thought it would be 10, but it has changed.”

I had to return to gate 4. I was forced to walk extremely fast. The whole way I was only cursing myself for believing these people who give me wrong directions.

At gate 4, almost everybody was on board. There were hardly three or four persons ahead of me. Both my knees were hurting. Everything was hurting: physically, vitally and mentally. I was so disgusted. I said, “Civilisation is not only lacking in India, but in India’s once-upon-a-time boss.”