Jolly Grant hey ho!

(The above is an old pic from our travels pre-covid as we could not find any pic in the aircraft from this trip. As you can see, Amit is not looking like a Baba Panda here 😂 ) 

Amit has always been an overconfident flier. Don't worry, the aircraft will taxi back for me - just let me send off this tweet. And the sparrows would line up in admiration. However two years of not even taking an autorickshaw ride seemed to have eaten away that confidence. Plus it might have been me.

Did you hear Thiagu's (mad hatter based in Chennai) story? I asked Amit 4 weeks prior to our departure. He bought tickets worth 22k to and fro Jabalpur on Indigo and then found out those flights don't exist. Please check our tickets.

Have you read all the fine print? I asked the next morning. There seems to be a lot of paperwork required. Do we need an rtpcr test? Please call the airline and find out.

Uttarakhand needs us to have travel permits to enter, I announced the next morning. Maybe you should speak to Deepak?

What about all those other states? Do we need travel permits for each place? But we don't know where all we'll be driving through post Jabalpur? Can you ask your twitter buddies?

Should I carry straws? I asked while packing my travel hand bag three weeks prior to departure. If we want to drink water on the flight we won't need to take off our masks. Should I check with Didi? She just flew.

They aren't serving any food or drink on flights - Didi informed me - surely you guys can survive a couple of hours without eating or drinking anything?

Umm yeah I guess.

There's no food on the flight? Now Amit was really distressed. What about the airport restaurants? Are they all closed? Call someone else - don't call Didi, he said, I'll call the airport.

But no sitting and drinking beer at the airport, I warned. We'll figure out unpopulated areas and hang around there.

We need printouts of our baggage tags, I announced. The fine print here says to print out your baggage tags and attach them to your suitcases. The airline won't do it.

There was even two days worth of discussion on how we would travel to the airport with a final consensus on Uber with all four windows down. Our flight was at 3p.m. - we left home at 11 a.m. (as I said, Amit was really nervous), a thick folder of various printouts in my bag along with a stash of biscuits. We waltzed past the temperature checking guy on to the security person. A rather tense moment happened when we had to lower our masks! The beautiful girl at the check in counter wouldn't even look at Amit's face forget the sheaf of papers he was thrusting at her. Mr Muscle who hefted our 14.98 kilo suitcases on to the belt expertly stripped off the stickers from the airline baggage tags while my home crafted tags, tied with bits of wool, looked on forlornly.

Security check cleared, adrenalin pumping, we learnt with great relief that the smoking lounges were in operation. Beer? Seriously? Okay no beer. Lunch? Yes lunch! What about the masks? To hell with the masks,Amit said. But I actually ate with my mask bunched up around my nose while breathing heavily through my mouth. Those burgers never tasted so good, squishing with mayo, mustard and tomato sauce. Oily fries were fought over with a coke bringing on the burp. We should have got those Slow Fire Chef tees printed said I. Yeah next trip burped Amit.

The queue to board the flight was the same with passengers bumping each other to clamber on to the plane. By now Amit was back in his over confident avatar and lolled around reading newspapers. I'm a "local train" trained Mumbaikar. Pushing through to get that seat is part of my conditioning (so what if it's booked in my name). See you back in Mumbai darling, I shouted out over my shoulder, much to the amusement of a young co-passenger. She smiled at me through her mask and we carried on with the familiar travel conversation - where? Why? Background info, career paths, worldly observations etc.

Amit had been extremely worried he wouldn't fit in the seat but luckily for him the slim co-passenger on the aisle side kept the arm rest up as did I! We were like a couple of excited kids who had never flown before - doing everything kids do except kicking the seat in front. The newly married couple behind us were having their first fight and unknowingly I recorded most of it while filming the Himalayas. And no I'm not going to transcribe it. It was a private moment held in the privacy of their space.

The stewardess came down the aisle with her food cart, looking extremely glamorous despite the whole pp kit thingy. Wonder how they do it. Hey there is food on the flight! She swished us two tins of cashew nuts and some terrible coffee.

All in all it was a great flight. I just wish the Captain had done a few extra turns around the part where the Himalayas rise in all their glory with the pink and gold peaks like perfectly baked meringues. And then staring down at all the wilderness of the foothills as we neared Jolly Grant. Miles and miles of jungles crisscrossed with paths made by waterways which were now dry. Behind me the fight had abated and the honeymooners were now cooing over the beauty of the land that lay below us.

Mumbai forgotten. Covid forgotten. The crisp cold air and Deepak & Ambika's warm hugs (for the last two years Amit and I had only hugged each other) wiped clean the despair, depression and any other 'd' word you can think of (except drink).

"Excuse me sir - pass please?" Amit's day was made as he finally got an opportunity to display the sheaf of carefully laminated certificates and passes. 😃

Hope you folks are having a great week. Our latest episode featuring Amit's mom's recipe for #Kashmiri #Roganjosh has been released on #TheSlowFireChef streaming on Youtube. Do check it out if you haven't as yet.  Here's the link: Kashmiri Roganjosh Recipe Video 

Next week, I'll share with you about the wonderful time we had in Dehradun and the amazing food we were served by our hosts, the fun interesting markets and shops we visited and the awesome lunch meet up with another dear friend Ranjona and her family who served us some super Kebabs and Biryani.   

So till next week folks, take care and keep watching The Slow Fire Chef ! 💙😘

Semanti