Contempt in the air

The relative un-importance of South Asia in the scheme of the West is to be found in numerous unexpected nooks and crannies – such as the unearthly hours in which they herd passengers into their aircrafts. Take Delhi, the most important capital of South Asia. Invariably, the flights out, whether it is Lufthansa or British Airways or Air France, are timed between midnight and three! The glitterati of the great nation – India that is Bharat – heading out for European jaunts are perplexed at this lack of consideration but apparently are in no position to do anything about it. Now how dare the airlines do this to the second-most-populous-country-in-the-world's movers and shakers, included among them some of the finest geopolitical analysts that have walked this land since the time of Mahabharata?.If you ask me, the disrespect for our civilization is writ large in these aircraft departure and arrival timings. The rest of us in South Asia would be proud if the power brokers of New Delhi, at least, got given the time of day. Some respect would then trickle down to the rest of us as well, one would think..Even South Asia's own best-run airline is not giving due consideration to the body clock of the New Delhi – to repeat – mover and shaker. I see here listed Sri Lankan's flight UL 192 leaving DEL (Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sun) at 2340 hrs to unload its human cargo at CMB at 3:35 AM. AM? Imagine the plight! How is the diplomat, the businessman, the seminarian, to plan his/her life under these circumstances? There is no question of sleep, having to reach the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) airport before ten at night, which means leaving Karol Bagh at 8:30. Sleep is, of course, impossible during the three hour flight in the cramped Airbus 320. By the time you are out of Katunayake and heading down the highway towards Galle Face, the first rays of dawn are already lighting up the sky to the left..It is clear that these Delhi arrival-departure timings are – as usual – part of a deep-rooted conspiracy to keep us down, to ensure that the great and glorious era of Chanakya and/or Akbar will not see a revival in the twenty-first century..In Singapore, Hong Kong or Bangkok, the flights leave and arrive in the sensible hours of the morning or evening. You do not see the feverish rush you do at IGIA on either side of midnight. And, if for some reason you arrive at dawn or dusk, you will see an airport that is quiet like as if a calamity has overtaken Haryana, with only the odd flight to Thimphu or Kathmandu pulling in the passengers..Like I said, the West is scared of our potential and hence intent on keeping us irritable. The airline timings are just one method to achieve this end, planned by terrible men/women in underground bunkers in Langley, Virginia..The proposition runs thus:.India is the most important country of South Asia..New Delhi is the most important (and how odd, the only) capital of India (Bharat)..IGIA, serving New Delhi, is the pre-eminent international havaiadda of South Asia..The bizarre flight schedules set by respectable international airlines indicate an absence of proper esteem for the Great Indian Nation (GIN)..Lack of respect for GIN can be regarded as a slight to all of South Asia..Ataha (therefore), as the rishimunis used before the Aryans invaded and confused us all, we need to do something about this sorry state of affairs. We need to do something because of the incalculable harm to our self-image as people making up fully one-fifth of the planet, whose representatives in the form of New Delhi's super-successful get relegated red-eye travel timings..There are three things that could be done:.One, is for South Asia to emerge as such an economic powerhouse that the tables get turned on Europe. We want to see a time, within at least the lifetime of our grandchildren or by the time WTO gets going (whichever comes first), when flights depart Frankfurt at two am, arriving at IGIA at 10 am. Let the Germans suffer..Two, is for Atalji in Dilli, feeling for the suffering masses, to flash one of his nuclear-tipped missiles so that these unreasonable airlines, fearing loss of business because of disappearance of South Asia, start planning schedules that show more respect..Three, is to turn fatalistic. As they say when you go to complain about the lack of water at Vasant Kunj, "Yeh aisa hi hai, kya karein?" (This is just the way things are, what would you do mister?) Let us just continue to sacrifice a night's sleep for the privilege of travelling to Europe and the rest of the West..But, really, the best course is to stop travelling to the West until Lufthansa and its siblings begin to see things our way. Do we have it in us for this supreme sacrifice?