Aug 03, 2013 – My first flight ✈️

Oh my God! How can I forget this day!! It has been one of the most memorable days of my life. 

It all started with me receiving the joining location from Cognizant. When I learnt that it was Bangalore, I was so happy. Bangalore had been one of my favorite cities, and I was about to visit it. Before receiving the job location notification, I knew that the weather was really good in Bangalore. Plus, given how big the city is, there were endless opportunities for outdoors, which I was dying to do.

I remember receiving a call from one of my friends. He told me that he got Bangalore as the joining location, and was waiting for my notification. We both were optimistic that we will get Bangalore as the joining location. And boy, we were right! The first thing I did was to call him and tell him the good news. That’s when it struck me, we can fly to Bangalore, which will be our first air travel.

The problem with this plan was we were from different places in Maharashtra. Maharashtra is one of the states in India and is mostly famous for Mumbai, its capital and the presence of Bollywood. Our decision of flying to Bangalore was final, and so, we decided to take the flight from Pune to Bangalore. Pune seems to be the ideal choice for the both of us. It was the same distance from us and the flight from Pune to Bangalore was super cheap, which we both preferred.

Let me talk a little about our excitement before the flight. As this was the first time, we were not aware about the check-in, security, and the boarding process. The wonderful and helpful people at the Pune airport helped us a lot and we are thankful of them. When the Indigo officials informed about the boarding, we looked at each other, and silently conveyed that this is the time, we both were happy.

I vividly remember the time the pilot announced that it was time for take off. Oh man, such an adrenaline rush. I was not sure what to expect. I did not own a good phone at that time, so could not capture the moment, but my friend did, and thanks to him we could capture those moments forever. At one point, we were too scared to click picture, because, we thought the air hostess would come and scold us and will tell us to stop it. We were a bunch of newbies. Now, I look behind that moment and can’t help but laugh.

It was time for lunch followed by a choice of tea or coffee. This is where the western Milind took over my true self. I have been a tea guy and should have gone with tea, but, NO! I had to choose coffee and instantly regretted it. That was the time I realized you cannot throw away the leftover coffee outside when you are 30,000 feet up in the sky. It was some task to finish that coffee. The air hostess came and took away our dirty plates and cups and I don’t know why felt like she gave me a “look”, but hey, it was our first flight. We were supposed to do dumb stuff. It is inevitable.

Nearly 90 minutes in the flight, it was time for the landing and both of us were scared. A slight mistake here and there and boom, everything goes into flames. Fortunately, nothing of that sort happened and we landed safely. One thing that I noticed, I get more anxious during landing when compared with take off. May be, it is my thing, I don’t know!

The first impression of Bangalore was very cool. We saw from the flight that the soil is red, which was new for both of us.

The airport was obviously bigger and better than Pune airport. We clicked a few pictures outside the airport and headed to our destination.
This picture was clicked outside Bangalore Airport. The changes in my appearance are clearly visible.