Sunday, February 25, 2007
Bangalore: Flights of Fantasy
Chugged to meet, greet and watch flying machines whiz so low, your mane tugs to be air borne, the skin twitches to acknowledge the roaring giants and the skeleton wills to levitate.

After a crazy string of party hopping the previous night, woke to raucous calls of jet black crows that could easily kill for pleasure. If I could fly, I’d have swooped down to yank the vocal fold out of each one of ‘em…born or unborn.

Switching back to where I strayed away from…our guide/commentator to the air show had a mighty fling at the amber liquid the previous night and refused to answer our calls or banging at his door the following morning. His saintly house owner from the ground floor decided to help and the Pearly Gates opened shortly.

The friendly neighborhood barman, our driver for the day wasn’t found either. The eight a.m. sharp promises were long undone and we waited his entry through the Pearly Gates.

The tired engine of his Maruti 800 shrieked to be fed and four of us hopped in to be driven to our destination – Yelahanka Airbase.

We drove through an assortment of vehicles, a weekly roadside market teeming with people, stray cattle that seemed trained to relieve themselves only on medians. The narrow lanes connected to a beltway and then an arterial road that further fed us into an expressway. It was dusty and choking with traffic.

I was tired of straining through the tinted glasses and the dust storms that rose from vehicles that zipped past. Sent text messages to phones in the car, shuffled songs on my mobile, watched the last cigarette go up in smoky rings and continued to sneak peek the Sony H-5 that hung from a friend’s neck and made mental notes for my future cam.

Minutes later a steel bird soared and nosed higher; defying gravity and cutting through innumerous sheets of air. The performance was repeated, bettered, excelled by a series of jets that flipped, plunged, cruised, halted mid-air and nose-dived.

We craned our necks to watch the aviating devils glissando and the chest thumped to match the adrenaline rush in the cockpit. Stuck in the traffic and making the best our cervix and jugular vein could offer.

Met high noon by the time we parked the car. Parched throats and roasting sun not withstanding, we inched through the winding queue and walked to the ceremonial grounds.

If one jet gave me arrhythmic pulse, witnessing more than an eyeful sent me into a quarter million spasms…the tummyful burp variety though.

Lost, found, loured, grinned, hugged and camouflaged again…just the summary of what happened to us five in the little universe that frothed with families, couples and JFK kids.

Captured still frames in excess to boast live experience and blinked to record motion picture to playback from my cerebral database at will.

The Suryakiran acrobatics sealed the event shut with the usual tricolor spray paints against the blue sky, and the surprise grin worthy Valentine’s Day special heart with the arrow routed through it.

The damage was done…the show was over.

We lurched out of the gates and into the parking lot, constantly monitoring the traffic snarl that lay inches ahead. Mockingly, the sky lit up with the orgasmic buzz of the monstrous Galaxy kiting home and we grinned at it till the smoldering skies swallowed it.

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posted by Shivranjini Krishnamurthy @ 2/25/2007 06:02:00 PM   8 comments
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