Time Flies and How……………!!!

My official trips to Sri Lanka would start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday, not necessarily the same week. I would take the morning flight from Chennai and check-in at the hotel around 2 in the afternoon. On my way back there is a convenient flight in the evening which will allow me to tie up any loose ends at work, have lunch, check-out around 3,take the 6 o’clock flight, reach home by 9 pm, rest on Sunday and get back to the grind on Monday.

On my recent trip, I had fixed up an appointment at 10.30 with my associate on the last Saturday of my stay. In the early hours on Saturday, I woke up with a start; something made me check my tickets. My return ticket was for the morning 6.30 flight. I checked my watch and it was 4.45 already. I could never make it to the airport on time. Moreover there was an appointment to keep. Either my company’s travel desk had not informed me about the deviation from the normal or I had not taken note. My brain had registered the change during my cursory glance at my E-ticket and had alerted me. If only it had done it a couple of days earlier! Cursing my company’s travel desk for the goof-up, I called the Sri Lankan airlines, who were very helpful even at that unearthly hour to re-schedule my tickets for Sunday evening as the Saturday evening and Sunday morning flights were full. This meant that I had to cool my heels in Colombo on a Sunday. I never take the ticketing for granted anymore, double checking the details always. A lesson well learnt.

This also reminded me about the time when I was the Product Manager in my erstwhile company. As Product Managers (there were 4 of us reporting to the Marketing Manager),we needed to do field work to assess market dynamics, assess implementation of promotional strategies by the field force and suggest operational changes. Whenever a product was launched we also needed to impart training about the new product and spell out launch activities. During one such launch I was in Kochi. It was 25th January; I don’t remember the year though. I remember the date because the next day was the Republic day.

I finished the training class on the product and had outlined on how we were going about the launch. Not an easy task to keep the interest of the audience alive for a day on something as drab as the technical aspects of a pharmaceutical product, especially when the audience is a motley crowd of 25 salespeople consisting medical representatives, area mangers, a regional manager and a zonal manager. Sales people all over, believe they are born to talk and consider their ears as manufacturing defects designed only to hear themselves talk. Considering all this I think I did a commendable job. My next venue was Aurangabad. I was to take the morning flight to Mumbai and then take a connection to Aurangabad. Since my flight was at 8.30 in the morning and the airport some 30 Km from the city, I decided to have an early night. I packed my baggage, had my dinner in my room, asked for a wake up call at 5.30 am and went to sleep.

I woke up to the sound of my telephone ringing. I picked up the receiver, but there was no sound from the other side. I groped for my watch on the bed-side table. The time was 5.25. It was the blasted wake up call. I got up, brushed my teeth, fixed myself a coffee, had a bath, got ready and came down to the lobby in an hour’s time. The duty manger had changed. I signed the bill and checked out. I didn’t have to pay anything since the bill would be sent to the company. I asked for the hotel taxi to drop me at the airport. The security at the airport checked my ticket and said that I will not be able to come out once I enter the airport. As if I didn’t know that. I looked at the time, it was 7.10 and I would be going directly to check in. Why should I be coming out? My flight was coming from Dubai or Sharjah. Air India I guess. I don’t remember now. It would touch Kochi and then Calicut before reaching Mumbai. I would be reaching Mumbai around noon. My connection to Aurangabad was at 2.30 pm. By 3.00 I would land in Aurangabad. By 4.00 I would be in my hotel room, in time for a quick bath, a few drinks, a sumptuous dinner and a restful sleep to awaken afresh for the next day’s programme. The mere thought was bliss, but it was still 9 hours away.

I went to the  screen displaying the arrivals and departures. What caught my attention was the time flickering on the right hand corner of the screen. It showed 01:55. My first reaction was how can an International airport  be so lax on the upkeep of the clock. I checked some more clocks in the terminal and they all showed the same time. I realized something was terribly wrong. I looked at my watch. Gosh, I was wearing it the wrong way.  I had dreamt of the telephone ringing, seen the time upside down, which meant that I had woken up at midnight and had reached the airport at 1.40 in the morning for the  8.30 flight.
(To be concluded)

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