I have had my fair share of traveling around the world by different flight carriers but last trip with PIA was a memorable one.
Three incidents happened in one trip when I was flying from New York to Peshawar via London and Dubai back in early 2000.
At the JFK I noticed a desi guy in a full blown cowboy attire, this included those metal spurs on his long shoes, a black Levi jeans, a short brown leather jacket and big cow boy hat with a couple of shiny chains around his neck. He was constantly on the phone and kept on walking in front of waiting passengers in an attempt to display his importance. Me and my brother looked at each other and could not control our laughter.
Anyway, I got on the plane and did not notice whether he was on the plane or not.
Half an hour before making a stop over and Heathrow, the Pilot announced the request to get seated and be buckled up. Soon as this announcement was made, a choudry type desi guy stood up, pulled his bag out and walked absolute carefree towards and plane's door. He was dead serious and has neck stiffed with fake arrogance as if he was above the rules and regulations and it was too fussy for him to wait. This triggered a ripple effect and another guy followed him, followed by another and another.. so we had a queue formed in front the door while the plane was in flight. The air hostesses and pilot had given up after constant request, begging, and yelling to get them back to their seats. Some desi lady in the mean time had put her baby on the front seat's food tray and changed the baby's diaper since the rest room was busy (because landing announcements were made). She didn't have an extra plastic bag so I guess she just tossed the used diaper on the plane's carpet.
Now I am not sure what she fed the baby with but it was like an atomic reactor blown up. The baby diaper reeked with full potency and the entire plane smelled like poop.
In all that chaos, the uncle, wearing a white Shalwar qameez, next to me (looked like a shareef guy) had accidentally spilled some juice or water on his clothes (May be his brain got paralyzed by the diaper's aroma), so he pushed the button to call the air hostess. After a few minutes an over weighted wild and extremely vicious buffalo came and furiously asked, "KIA CHAHYAY ???" The miskeen uncle looked at his clothes and said "thora napkin laa dayn juice girr gaya hai".. she mumbled something and rushed towards the restroom and came back with an entire roll of a toilet paper that she had pulled out from the reserves and literally slammed it into the uncle's lap that hit him at some "nazuk area", the uncle could not stop the yelp and moaned in misery "oooii maaa, marr gaya". The misery on his face was not enough for the air hostess to give a flying flock so she disappeared. The uncle was left placing his hands in the center of his lap and bent over in pain.
Not sure exactly what was it but all of a sudden many small babies had started crying in a chorus (perhaps they were all getting a diaper change as part of getting ready routine before landing)
The pilots had gone crazy so they reported the queue situation at the plane's door to the Heathrow's security. The plane landed and doors were NEVER opened. Heathrow officials had instructed the pilot that EVERYONE stays on the plane while it gets refueled.
This was actually a very sad situation because many passengers had Heathrow as their final destination but after a lot of argument, hangama, and requests, the plane door was never opened and EVERYBODY had to travel to Dubai with us (even those who were supposed to get off at Heathrow). Thanks to choudry Sahib.
Now I find myself in the queue to get aboard for Dubai to Peshawar flight. All of a sudden this guy bumped me to cut the queue and stand in front of me, I looked at him and he made those miskeen shakkal and hand gesture of saying "aadab" as if saying, "yaar kher haina, mujhay queue mein apnay se aagey aaney dow". I smiled and said OK.
I got into my seat and noticed that passengers just kept pouring in even after all seats were occupied. Turns out, this small fokker airplane was severely overbooked. Believe it or not but the entire aisle area and walking passage was used to get them seated on the plane's carpet. It was all labor type passengers who didn't mind it, all they wanted was to go home without caring that it was now impossible for seated passengers to reach the lavatory. Deep inside my mind I had a mixed feeling and was sorta enjoying the funny pains of this trip on one hand, and on the other hand, I was sad that our folks still live in stone age.
Just before the landing, there were some forms distributed. The air hostess had given the stack to the front row passengers to pass it back as she there was no room to walk thru the aisle.
I got the form and noticed that there was no pen, luckily (or I should rather say unluckily) I had one in my pocket so I pulled it out and SOON AS I STARTED to write on the form, there were 100's of hands all around me, about ten hands on my right, 12 on my left, 15 thru the top my head, some thru my arms, I mean they were everywhere .. It was like when news reporters flood some important personality with mics and cameras. And I saw that every hand was holding that form.
For a moment I thought they didn't have a pen but I knew immediately what it was. But to take the doubts out of my mind, I offered my pen to one of hands and it was exactly what I suspected. They wanted me to fill out their forms as they did not know how to write.
Since these were my fellow Pakistanis and very cute and innocent ones, I found myself unable to refuse, so I think I ended up filling out about 50 forms. By this time I had a headache and my hand was tired. The pilot announced landing, thanks for the passengers sitting in the aisle area that no one could walk to the plane's door.
An amazing thing happened at the touch down. The entire plane started to clap very hard and cheered in joy. I looked around a literally outbursted in laughter. There was nothing in the world that could stop me from joining the party so I clapped as well (Dil khole kar). All my travel frustration vanished in a matter of seconds and I had a big smile at getting off the plane.
Our driver received me and I called home (in new york) upon arriving my home (in Peshawar) to let the family know that I have arrived safely.
My brother told me that the desi cowboy guy at JFK had missed his flight while he was busy showing off and was begging to the counter clerks to call the pilot and had him return back to JFK and pick him up.
Suitcases open, things being moved around from suitcase to suitcase. I even saw a full blown out family argument with some terrible language even from the women.
