Was it 9:30 when we finally took off? Fully hungry and half asleep, we didn’t care any longer. My wife is a blessed soul. Anytime she wants to sleep, she goes to bed and falls asleep in an instant. That is exactly what happened even before the plane started taxiing. I, being the opposite, looked up, down, right, left, front, and back without seeing and, as a corollary, without observing. The half-hour flight, half of which was spent in a shaky dance, seemed to take one and a half hours. As we were about to land, my wife asked, "How did we reach so soon? It feels as if it took only ten minutes." The power of sleeping bliss.

And no aerobridge. The plane came to a halt on a distant horizon, in the middle of a far-off runway. Luckily, there was a ramp. Both of us wobbled unsteadily down the ramp, and a guy who was watching us with interest and intensity asked if we had requested wheelchair help. Yes, of course. Could he have not come up then? Anyway, both of us were seated and belted in a comparatively more spacious wheelchair and left in the lurch. Both the guys vanished. All the passengers had taken the bus, and the entire area looked deserted. My wife became anxious. I comforted her, telling her that at least the pilot and air hostesses who had earlier not extended their hand to help were still on the plane. By the time the passengers traveling to another destination by the same flight started arriving, I knew the reason why the Head Steward was urging everyone to be fast. They had another midnight flight to catch. At last, the two guys appeared with more wheelchairs from the flight with some passengers. All of us were loaded into a bus.

These guys were extremely nice. The gate was a little far away, and they suggested we book a cab now so that by the time we reach the gate, the cab would be ready. It happened that way.

We were terribly hungry. No restaurant was in sight at the Domestic Airport. If we had to go to the International Airport, we would have to walk a long distance or take the cab out of the airport and enter again. Nice arrangements. The cab driver was an Assamese speaking fluent Tamil. Hesitantly, he refused to stop at any restaurant to enable us to have dinner or, was it, an early breakfast, since Uber rules did not permit stopping, especially during the night. But he agreed to wait for a few minutes to enable us to pick up something to eat. Nothing was needed. It was past 11:30 p.m., and no shop, restaurant, or even roadside eatery was open. With hunger and a wee bit of anger, we reached home. And my wife had to prepare something to mollify our stomachs.

We slept like logs.

How does the body bounce back so soon? The next morning, after a long sleep, we were back to normal and wondering when the next function would happen when we could go through this experience again.

Continued in 222 - Weighing the Options