Monday, December 24, 2012

Wishlist Wednesdays -2

This week's prompt is
My one wish that came true and gave me immense joy....


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Before I go into my wish I have to give some background information.
Back in those days when we were kids and travelling in a plane was not as frequent or accessible as it is today my mom would always tell us(me and my sister) , "When you grow up and get a job I want you to take me in a flight just one time, even if it is for a short  distance from Pune to Mumbai."
My parents are also great travel freaks. Every alternate summer vacations we visited different states in India.
When I first  visited US (a short duration of 6 weeks) they told me , do not even think of saving any money just go and visit all the places that you want to see. I was so thrilled to have visited US that I decided that the next time I am here I will definitely get my parents.

End of background information.
May 2005, I visited US again and I immediately asked my parents to get thier passports and visas stamped. They got their visa work done on Aug 29th 2005 and I booked their tickets for travel to JFK airport on Sept11th 2005.
And as you must have guessed it was my mom & dad's(M&D)  first flight journey. Their flight was from Mumbai-->Heathrow -->JFK.

While their flight was landing at Heathrow airport it got hit by a bird and after landing it was stalled. All passengers were accomodated in another flight to Chicago. M&D had some trouble finding the new gate and they were the last ones to reach.

The flight attendent said they did not have place for two passengers, my dad argued that they had to travel by this flight (as it is they were delayed and his daughter i.e me would be waiting at the airport with no news etc etc, how I spent tense moments  time at JFK is a different post altogether), and so they were accomodated in Business Class. It was a real luxury flight for them to Chicago and then they had to take a domestic flight to JFK, so my mom had a really really long first flight journey and they reached JFK after midnight(the correct time is 3 pm).

At this late hour there was no buses or trains to get us to Stamford CT, but fortunately at that time of the night there were  lot of limo riders who would take you to your destination at a nominal price. I paid that fare and my parents were taken to my apartment in a real limousine. We had the luxury of sitting in cushioned seats with our own bar(which we apparently did not use).

During their trip to US, one of the days we decided to visit New York. We took a train to Grand Central, as we were leaving we saw a huge crowd and realized there was a shooting going on. On looking closer it turned out to be a Bollywood film "Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna". My mom was overjoyed to see SRK and Karan Johar at so close quarters. Rani Mukherjee was like 5 steps away from where she was standing. I doubt we could get so close to them if we went for a show in India.

On the same trip to NY, my dad wanted to visit the UN headquarters in NY, ppl visited NY to visit the Statue of Liberty, Times Square but my dad wanted to also see this. I had no clue the UN Headquarters was  in NY, anyway I noted the address and we went in search of it by Streets & Avenue(that is how everything is arranged in NY). We were getting no-where and as it was getting late, we decided to try for 5 more minutes before departing, as we turned another corner we saw a building with all the nation's flag flying. My dad was beyond pleased, and after clicking pictures we all happily returned home.

Mom is a Hindi movie bluff and in movies they always showed the flight landing in the runaway, steps would be bought up to the flight and all passengers got down and walked till the airport. It happens for domestic planes but as theirs was an international flight and they always took off and landed directly at the gates, she felt she missed out on that part.
Luckily for us when we visited Orlando, we landed at a small domestic airport and they did exactly what they do there, stop the flight in the runaway  get the steps and we walked till the airport, her that wish too coming true.

They left for India after a super vacation of 2 months.

So my wish was for my mom to fly and both my parents to visit US and Yes, that came true and gave me immense joy.









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