Till about a month back, I had never been in an aeroplane. Or in an air-baloon, or a hang glider for that matter. So I had not had the opportunity to look down upon the earth and say, well, whatever it is one might say looking down upon the earth from say ten thousand feet above....
Anyway, in the past month, I have suddenly managed to log almost ten thousand miles in the air, and this has led to a few nice and rather memorable experiences. This one particular time, I was flying back to Mumbai, a city that had been my home for the last four years. (Well, actually I just used to live in a hostel in my college but given that I spent about 45 months out of the four years there, home is probably not very wrong.) The flight was from the east, and we were flying into the sunset, trying to race the sun, as it were. But by the time the flight began its descent, we had already fallen far back in the race, and it was utterly dark.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, this sea of lights swam into view. I pushed my face close to the window (trouble with airbusses is that the innermost layer feels like plastic, like it might break anytime, so I was a little afraid to push too hard...) to take in as much as I could. At first I thought the flight had swung out over the Arabian Sea and it was coming in from the water, for how else could one explain the utter contrast between the darkness, and the city?! But I was mistaken, we were just coasting in over from above the near absolute desolation of the Western Ghats into the city of blinding lights! It was mesmerising. And then I franticly started looking for familiar signs!
The first thing I recognised was the beautiful string of gold crookedly snaking down the length of the city that was the Bombay-Pune Highway, all lit up in the night, and hardly recognisable as the dusty busy road four of us had taken on our way to Lonavla! Then the long stretch of the Airoli bridge, it looks just as beautiful from the sky as it did from the top of sameer hill. Familiar roads and lights came in a rush after that, the Eastern Express Highway, the flyovers, the familiar connecting roads, I even thought I saw the aforesaid sameer hill which stands within the IITB campus!
But alas, thats where the trip down memory lane was cut rudely short, in a few moments the craft landed with a jarring thud that brought me promptly back to the ground. And I was left wondering about the night lights of the Worli seaface, maybe even Marine Drive? Well, maybe another time.
Anyway, in the past month, I have suddenly managed to log almost ten thousand miles in the air, and this has led to a few nice and rather memorable experiences. This one particular time, I was flying back to Mumbai, a city that had been my home for the last four years. (Well, actually I just used to live in a hostel in my college but given that I spent about 45 months out of the four years there, home is probably not very wrong.) The flight was from the east, and we were flying into the sunset, trying to race the sun, as it were. But by the time the flight began its descent, we had already fallen far back in the race, and it was utterly dark.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, this sea of lights swam into view. I pushed my face close to the window (trouble with airbusses is that the innermost layer feels like plastic, like it might break anytime, so I was a little afraid to push too hard...) to take in as much as I could. At first I thought the flight had swung out over the Arabian Sea and it was coming in from the water, for how else could one explain the utter contrast between the darkness, and the city?! But I was mistaken, we were just coasting in over from above the near absolute desolation of the Western Ghats into the city of blinding lights! It was mesmerising. And then I franticly started looking for familiar signs!
The first thing I recognised was the beautiful string of gold crookedly snaking down the length of the city that was the Bombay-Pune Highway, all lit up in the night, and hardly recognisable as the dusty busy road four of us had taken on our way to Lonavla! Then the long stretch of the Airoli bridge, it looks just as beautiful from the sky as it did from the top of sameer hill. Familiar roads and lights came in a rush after that, the Eastern Express Highway, the flyovers, the familiar connecting roads, I even thought I saw the aforesaid sameer hill which stands within the IITB campus!
But alas, thats where the trip down memory lane was cut rudely short, in a few moments the craft landed with a jarring thud that brought me promptly back to the ground. And I was left wondering about the night lights of the Worli seaface, maybe even Marine Drive? Well, maybe another time.
hehe.. the sameer hill from which u can see the sea, the fireworks at marine drive and pretty much everything in bombay :D.
ReplyDeleteIs that pic of clouds taken from the plane?
yep pics from my flight back from kl..
ReplyDelete