Every time on the emirates flight, I would have some complaint or the other. Last few times it was the menu issue and this time it was the broken seat. Nevertheless my loyalty remains unshaken because my complaints are always sorted out. I can, however, not prevent myself from comparing the services to Calicut (and I don’t know about other destinations in Kerala or India) and some foreign locations of these international flights. The difference is quite palpable.
In all my flights, I wait for the duty free to pass by so that I can get myself a miniature model of the aircraft to add to my collection and let me tell you, I have not been able to get it, in the past so many flights. I never see the duty free shopping wheel by. This time I kept myself alert during the entire flight to know what’s happening. And guess what! There is no duty free cart or chart. An airhostess just walks across the aisle almost whispering duty free. And ofcourse, she didn’t have my stuff. I don’t blame the airlines, perhaps nobody ever shops from the onboard duty free to Calicut. But then I wonder, how many passengers on other international flights shop on board. Yet, don’t the airlines follow the procedures.
This is just one instance and if I start adding there would be many.
I find us solely responsible for this situation. The International community has decided that this is sufficient for us and it is because :
1. We don’t voice back. We never demand our rights. We have accepted that is sufficient for us. We are happy to acquiesce.
And then, there is that false pride part, “what will other’s think of me syndrome”. We are scared to ask for something that is rightfully ours. We are scared of the crew, we are scared of our fellow passengers and when we come home, we are scared of our neighbours. We never ask for the balance from the bus conductors. We never complain against a burnt dish in the restaurant. (And in Calicut) We, ladies, cover heads thinking what the community will say, not because of any religious obligation!
Well, atleast I’m not bothered.
Every time I don’t get my requested menu onboard, I make sure that the crew arranges for one. And as I said earlier, they get it for me. It’s just a matter of asking.
Unless we stop taking ourselves for granted, nobody else will.
2. The second reason – our attitudes, our ego. No sooner does the flight’s wheel touches the runaway, people start unstrapping their seat belts. Over the years I have seen the cabin crew’s reaction changing from requests to be seated to shoutings and screamings to utter desperation. It’s hell of a situation. This time they just sat there, fed up. Rules are not meant for us, atleast in our country. I am the king! Damn this attitude!
This time, a mayhem was created when two people standing in Queue to the ‘Bathroom!’ in the aircraft started fighting over who is to go next. There was no worse an embarrassing situation. Why do we make ourselves so much a joker.
We have been tagged. The species ‘Malabari’(and this applies to all keralites!) and it’s characteristics have been universally declared. It’s a sad state when all our goodness is masked by the Halo effect and when the few exceptions get tagged as well. Perhaps, I too have been stereotyping, but if even me being inside the dough cannot see the grain apart, how can I expect an outsider not to categorise us.
We have been spitting at the sky and don’t we feel it falling back on our faces!
We (and I mean Indians!) have a lot of potential and a lot of success to our credits. Our values and culture is the best in the world. But as it is, vice permeates deeper than virtue. The world is competitive and only the fittest survives. Why give ourselves away with these petty things!
