Infinite Improbability in North Carolina : flying into the Cuckoo's nest

Mine is the seat just after the Window EXIT seats; 23F. The Flight steward comes over to the four unsuspecting gentleman sitting on the seats, bends over and says in a loud voice. “Gentleman, do you realize that you are sitting on the Emergency EXIT windows seat? Do you understand the duties that come with sitting on the Emergency WINDOWS EXIT seat”. The four guys nod in silent acquiescence. In the most made up Arnold Schwarzenegger baritone the steward speaks out - “Are you able and willing” The guys nod again. “I now pronounce you man and door, you may kiss the door”.

I am on the second rung of my journey from Tampa to Raleigh Durham and my flight has just taken over from Atlanta towards Raleigh. It was Tampa – Atlanta – Raleigh and the pilot was the worst pilot I have ever seen. (I realized that he was the worst Pilot even before I saw him, and as expected the remark simply alluded to his flying skills). The way he flew is almost like the way we drive. He honked in mid air thrice (I have no idea to what or whome), he braked, turned, picked up speed, braked again, press the accelerator, shook the plane, and made the heart leap out of my able and willing Window seat passengers.

10:35 p.m Thursday, the flight landed at Raleigh Durham. A pretty noticeable thing on the flight was that everybody waits for the ones in front on them to disembark before getting down. So anybody on seat 23 would wait for everybody till seat 22 to disembark from the flight and only after that would they move. Not quite like apnee desi flight, kill the guy infront, mow the old lady if she doesn’t yield the way for you but be the first one out of the flight

Bhaiya, Bhabhi and Varun were there waiting for me at the Baggage claim and I don’t remember much of the airport except that I had bent down and had been embraced by Varun in the most beautiful hug. With Bhaiya on the wheel of a white colored Honda CRV, we made it through the curvy, twisty, bending, rising, falling ways of Raleigh Durham towards 1007 Ashley Downs (read home).

Raleigh and Durham are twin cities which closely resembles a hill station by any Indian standard. The ways are decked with long, deodhar resembling trees on each side, and not just a single line of trees but small woods of sort. Its winter, so the trees aren’t green but that doesn’t take the beauty off. In fact it just adds to the hill station aura. The temperatures are sub zero but you don’t notice that in the heated car. The roads are narrower compared to Tampa but the traffic flows smoothly. Tampa is more of a commercial area, with four line pathways within the city too and lots of malls or shops along those streets. Raleigh is a narrow two – three line pathways with the malls separated from the residential areas. As you move around in Tampa, all you’ll find is Shops, Walmart, this mart that mart; Raleigh you’ll found woods, and huts within those woods and lots of maple tree leaves which have fallen from the trees around those huts. Told ya – it’s like a hill station, only it isn’t.

Bhaiya’s place is also like most other houses out there – Hut shaped, with a garage. Its white in color, has a facade set in stone, has those sloping roofs and windows out of those sloping roofs, a lawn in front, small woods separating it from the road on the back, and houses on left and right which are identical to it. There is narrow concrete path from within the lawn that takes you to the garage and the main door. A flight of stairs (2 -3 stairs) takes you to the main door which opens into the drawing room. However if you chose to enter through the garage door and that’s the one which is more frequently used, it takes you into the kitchen and dining room. Its an open kitchen as is prevalent in this country with an L shaped front panel, with the Microwave and the cooking range forming the bottom of the L. The dining table is towards the left, the bathroom as you move further inside from the kitchen and next to the store. The door to the back lawn come is right behind the dining table and a small desk of sorts in front houses the cordless which is where we were calling all of you from.

There is a flight of stairs from at the end of the drawing room which takes you to the rooms upstairs. We have two bedrooms and Varun’s toy room and that’s all the description that features in this blog. I have specified it all so that you can picture us there and it’d be convenient for the rest of this blog.

With 40 minutes left for Raleigh Durham to enter into Friday 28^th January 2005 (EST), we started on with our dinner. Boondi rayta, paneer ki sabzi, Rajma chawal, paranthaey and Varun Kochar jumping and playing around you makes for the perfect Dinner setting. And then to top it all, a steaming hot cup of tea served in the living room and all of us laughing it over after dinner while comfortably snuggled in the couch and the fireplace breathing out an even blue flame.

It was close to 2:30 when I finally went off to sleep and it was good Morning Raleigh at 10:30 a.m next day.