HUMAN FOLLY.

Air travel is not a great thing for persons serving in Air Force. Therefore, I travelled by air since 1972 in various types of transport aircrafts like soviet ll14, soviet An 12, British Avro and various types of helicopters of Indian Air Force. But travelling by civil Airlines in the nineteen seventies was a great thing comparing to these days. Civil Airlines were operating from many aerodromes of the Airforce in the North Eastern sector. The Indian Airlines had a contract with Airforce for using aerodrome on a rental basis. I was in Airforce station Chabua, in Dibrugarh district, Assam in 1976. Indian Airlines was operating from Chabua Airforce aerodrome at that time. The forces people were given half concession in Air tariff. Airforce gave us seven journey days for the train journey from Chabua to Kerala passing through Howrah. Many of my colleagues opted for Indian Airlines from Chabua to Dum Dum international airport, Kolkata so that two days train journey could be saved in two hours. Thus we could reach Kerala in another two days by travelling in Coromandel Express to Chennai and from there to Kerala.

The travel in Airforce planes is not very amusing. Flying fifty years ago in an Airforce plane is a thrill once or twice, not after that. There is no Air hostess to serve you and no audiovisuals for amusement. You may carry a pack lunch or dinner of some pooris and chicken curry from Airforce mess to eat in the plane. There is no enjoyment of sightseeing of train travel in planes. The monotonous clouds will be your sights for some hours. You will be counting minutes for landing. Some of us may experience air sickness, for which we carried Avomin tablets.

I was given a magnified depiction of Indian Airlines travel by my forerunners, especially of the compassionate hospitality of the charming and graceful Air hostesses who would attend you for all guidance. Even a traveller for his maiden air travel wouldn't have any confusion in his travel. The frequently served deliciousness was an added attraction. The beautiful movies, the frequently announced affectionate pieces of advice for flight safty and other guidelines by the air hostesses, etc., altogether, were described hyperbolically, to be a heavenly time pass for two hours. So I became crazy to make my first Indian Airlines travel. I took my two months annual leave and started my travel in Boeing 737 with my wife from Chabua aerodrome. My wife was on the window seat and I was on the middle seat. My right side seat was occupied by an agricultural scientist, Dr. Bora from Dibrugarh, going to Pampady, Kottayam. He was with a mission of studying the feasibility of rubber cultivation in Assam. There was no cultivation of rubber in Assam till 1970. Now, a major part of Assam is cultivated by rubber trees. Dr. Bora was a frequent traveller by Indian Airlines. He was very happy with our company as he could converse with us in English. As it was morning, the first menu was an aerial breakfast. You know very well that the breakfast would be delicious and heavy. Eating breakfast was easy as we were trained in using crockery and cutlery in our Airforce mess. But the problem was the preparation and intake of coffee or tea. The components were in sealed packets. That was also ok as they were labeled. The most confusing thing was two clean-cut white cubes were lying in the clean dry paper cup, provided for tea. Those were glittering more than ivory cubes, so beautiful to see but did not know where to be used. I waited for Dr. Bora to what he would do with those cubes. But he was busy in reading Times of India as if going to make a discovery. My patience crossed the limit and I put the cubes in my mouth and it vanished in split second. It was revealed that it was genetically sugar prepared to dissolve fast in tea or coffee. My obedient wife also without any hesitation, swallowed the cubes and confirmed that those were sugar cubes. Now my task was how to conceal my ignorance and foolishness from Dr. Bora. Meanwhile, Dr. Bora started preparing tea while we also followed his method. Suddenly, looking at our cups, he asked like a caring co-passenger " Didn't she put sugar cubes in your cups? I will ask her". That much of his sincerity was unnecessary, I thought because the hostess would say the cubes were there, although still, she would provide again. But I immediately told him," No please, we are diabetic". Thus my folly was effectively hidden from him without any loss or profit. He also added, showing the sugar cubes, that the sugar cubes were a recent introduction in Indian Airlines and he had confusion last time but the hostess clarified it. We had our sugar-free tea, which we never had earlier in 28 years of our life.

My wife and I travelled through the UK and thirteen European countries in many airlines later. All the time when tea was served on the plane I remembered my human folly. But nowhere in these journeys, we came across these celestial white cubes, instead, there were labelled tubular packs of sugar crystals given for tea and coffee. Dr. Bora might have sympathized in mind of us being diabetic at such a young age. My obedient wife took a firm decision not to follow blindly any stupid thing I do. These elegant white cubes may not create hurdles like rubik's cube as it is popular now.