Oh Captain! Oh Captain!

An interesting thing I read today. Death is certain. One day or the other, every one has to die. The day you are born, there is one thing that gets certain. And that thing is that no matter how much you try, you cannot avoid death. It's like that path wherein you know the final destination. And this path is the biggest path of all that one takes during their lifetime. One should not worry about the certain things in life.

So why am I mentioning a thing as death, which is often feared and not spoken about. Well it so happens that there have been a few instances where I think was real close to it, and escaped. Whether, it is falling from the cliff while doing rappelling, almost setting foot on a venomous cobra, sky diving from the plane without knowing what's going to happen, white water rafting inspite of fearing water and not knowing how to swim etc etc. Needless to say, I am thankful for it, every time I look back at it.

But more than that, I have always had this queer thought in mind. The thought is that when I do come to the end of the life, and am on the verge of this dreaded thing, I should be smiling. Smiling at the things I have done, and a life well lived so far. Of having done things that I am passionate about, and living each day with immense happiness.

The latest of these near end moments was when a bird hit our plane on my way back from Ahmedabad to Bangalore. And smiling I was, when others in the flight were panicking and asking the flight crew to take the plan back to Ahmedabad and make an emergency landing.

The foul smell in the cabin was noticed by many and people immediately started to feel that something was wrong. A few started to take precautionary measures by holding their seats firmly. By the time the smell went off, we learnt that the air conditioning unit in one of the engines was switched off. A few mistook that for the engines being shut off, and hence started to panic more. The guy in front of me, started communicating with the cabin crew in sign language, signaling her to request the captain for an emergency landing. Numerous episodes of National Geographic series came rushing into my mind. Nevertheless, I thought the whole scenario unfolding in front of me was... well .... interesting. And that's when I smiled more :)

Another guy kept pointing to the flashing red light in the cabin, indicating to others that something was terribly wrong and that we compel the captain to fly back. One asked the air hostess if she had experienced such a situation before, to which she replies, oh yes. And bird hits are a common thing. Really? 

I was smiling as the air hostess was calm and was smilingly assuring us that nothing was wrong. Even if she mentioned that to keep us away from worrying, and the truth was something else, I still believed her. I thank her for taking care of the situation calmly and explaining with a beautiful smile to every passenger who asked her what happened. To one she replied, "Poor bird.. It got roasted!" I literally burst out laughing on hearing her! :D

Finally the flight did land without any hitches, and on my way out, I smiled again at the air hostess and said her "Thank you for that eventful flight :) "

She smiled back.