Friday, October 07, 2005

Scratch and wonder


When you travel Indian Airlines there are no surprises.

The flight takes off an hour late - and of course there are no proper announcements.

The air hostesses are middle-aged, frumpy and despite years of experience don't know how to apply their lipstick.

While other airlines take exactly 30 seconds to show you the safety procedure, that too as the plane is taxiing on the runaway, IA takes the long route. The air hostesses limply fling their arms back and forth showing you the emergency exits (like kids standing in the very back of P.T. class, pretending to do the exercises).

Should there actually be an emergency I bet the IA crew would be the first ones down the chute...

Anyways, the point is there was a little surprise on my flight - out of the little plastic packet which holds the napkins and cutlery came this little 'scratch card'. The purpose of this card was unclear - you don't stand to win anything. And this is what it said:

"Janki and Meera are Raju's wives. Shobha is Meera's stepdaughter. How is Janki related to Shobha?"

Scratch and you find the answer: "Mother".

I am foxed. What kind of thinking could be going into producing this 'food for thought' in addition to the food on the tray ( the only area where IA is actually superior to private airlines).

a) Bigamy is illegal in India. Raju, being a Hindu, cannot have two wives!

b) Couldn't we just have questions like "What is the capital of Uttaranchal"?

c) Shouldn't someone be pulled up for wasting money on useless initiatives like this (scratch cards are not cheap to print - JAM wanted to do one, so I know!)

OK - so we all have choices and don't really have to fly Indian Airlines. Unless like my dad, the government pays for your tickets. In that case, happy scratch card collecting!

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