Budapest Diary - The Last Day

“Is the mango season in Bangalore over?” asked Jens as we boarded the flight to Bangalore. I couldn’t hide a smile, and replied back: “It’s raining now, hence it should be over”. I was glad to board the flight back to Bangalore, for so far it had been a disastrous day.

They were my last few hours in the beautiful city of Budapest – the end of the road for me. Waking up at 3:45 am, I looked out of the balcony. In the distance, the sky was slowly turning red. Hatar Ut was deserted, the huge bus stand quiet and still. A few buses and a tram were still parked. The huge Euro Park glowed with neon lights from all the shops. I quickly dressed and did some re-arranging of my luggage. Yesterday night I could not even lift the same. Rita, the lady at the reception had checked its weight and informed that it weighed 27 kg! – remember that I am carrying half of Pragati’s clothes. By the time I set off for the airport, it was 4:30, and the sun was rising (that’s how it is here).

Things started going wrong once I reached the airport. It is turning out to be a day of disasters so far. My watch broke. That’s not much of a disaster, but if you are the superstitious type, you can call it a bad omen. There were hardly a handful of people at the check-in counter, but for those of us, who reached early since we had connecting flights from Frankfurt, the lady at the check-in counter dropped the bomb - the flight to Frankfurt had been cancelled! I had to wait in another queue for more than an hour, thanks to a cribbing British family, who wanted to go somewhere, but was not willing to take a flight through Amsterdam just because their kid threw a tantrum that she did not want to go to Amsterdam! After a half-hour discussion and some stern words from the lady at the ticket desk, they finally shut the kid up and took a flight through Paris. Thankfully, they have put me on a MALEV flight at 7:50, so that I could catch the connection flight. But I still need to get the boarding pass at the gate in Frankfurt. I am open to the possibility that the flight could be overbooked!

The MALEV flight left from Terminal 2A, which meant that I had to do a bit of walking. Not something big for me, but not when you are slugging a 30 kg-odd suitcase along. And to make matters worse, there was not a single airport trolley around. Oh! I love Bangalore airport! The conveyor belt for the checking in the luggage broke down. The bright part of this was that they could not check the weight of my luggage. Hence, no dues so far! But there is a high probability that my luggage might not even reach Bangalore today. At the passport check, the guy seems to have thought that I was a terrorist or sort. First of all, he saw my Indian passport, and asked me whether I was a Hungarian citizen! Then he asked me to wait for about 20 minutes, while he went into the room. I saw him talking to some 5-6 guys in big impressive uniforms – the door was kept open, perhaps so that whatever happens inside would scare the living daylights out of anyone watching. Finally he came outside and said: “No problems!” Well at least I found someone who does not have a problem.

The biggest disaster of the day, if it had happened, would have been solely attributed to my absent mindedness, with nobody else to blame – for I almost flew to Rome instead of Frankfurt. I got into the wrong flight, by entering Gate 27 instead of 26. Luckily, the air hostess inside the flight noticed my boarding pass, and quickly escorted me outside the plane. The MALEV fight (with ‘new age technology’, as the pilot announced – I’m curious) was a revelation. They have one of the youngest fleet of planes in Europe, and have good seats with ample leg room. Everything went smoothly, and we got glimpses of Vienna, Linz, Passau and Nuremberg before we reached Frankfurt…and ran into the storm. It was worse than the Delhi flight, as the aircraft was tossed inside the dark cloud cover. The whole aircraft even plunged into darkness.

It was no wonder then that I was relieved on reaching Frankfurt. This time, we were guided to terminal three, which is usually the bastion of foreign flight. It meant that I got to see some airlines other than Lufthansa. And as is the case a lot of times, there was no security check at Frankfurt.

Finally I’m on the last leg of the journey – on my way back, with bitter-sweet memories of two weeks spent in a beautiful city that many of us in SAP has never seen. Memories of these two weeks are now etched in my mind, and in the 970-odd photographs I took in the past 2 weeks. It is now time to sit back and immerse myself in these memories. Perhaps it was a dream…Suddenly I feel a pang of pain.

The overhead monitor in the flight is beaming the movie “Guru”, and what better words to sum up thoughts on this trip than the song from the movie:

Jaage Hain Der Tak, Hamein Kuchh Der Sone Do
Thodi Si Raat Aur Hai Subha Toh Hone Do
Aadhe Adhure Khwab Jo Poore Na Ho Sake
Ek Baar Phir Se Neend Mein Woh Khwab Bone Do

Let me sleep now...