The f(p)light of Gulf returnees

After reading mindcurry's post , an incident I had stowed deep into my mind demanded that it be brought to light.

And it seems all such incidents happen when I am on my way back to my home , my motherland.. Well here goes ..

I was returning to kerala after an overseas assignment , and since I my flight was courtesy Qatar airways , I had to catch my connection flight to "Trivendrooom" at Doha. The halt was 5 hours long and I had a good opportunity to look at the multitude of people god had created. In spite of a mighty headache it was a good experience.

I had to board from gate no:6 , the flight was at 12:55 , well , 1 o'clock in the morning.There were a lot of tired but happy looking malayalees waiting to get back home. There were a few foreigners too . As it happens always , the no: of chairs at the waiting area were about 2% of what was actually required . So I was obliged to sit on the floor , but the spot I chose to sit turned out to be a vantage point .From where I sat , I could see the gate no:s 5 , 4, and 3 too. There were a lot of people going to Europe from there and it was nice watching them and the Qatar Airways Officials.

No one at the gates seemed bothered by the rather bulky things people took aboard ..that is , until the call for the flight to Trivandrum came. A Van Damme-ish looking guy along with a beautiful but surly faced ( shew ! ) girl were manning the counter at the gate. The passenger's ticket/boarding pass would be checked and then.. Van Damme will ask the passenger to hand over their hand baggage , lift it with a "OMFG it weighs a tonne!!!" expression and shake his head sadly. As if on cue the girl ( Van dam was assisting the girl ) would ask the passenger to "Please hand over the baggage to be send in along with the main luggage " . The passenger would try a feeble protest and will be met with stone faced stares and sad shaking of heads . Invariably the hand luggage went to the main cargo hold. I put on my best "don't bother me expression " jammed in my Mp3 player's ear buds deeper into my ears and went along casually. If my hand baggage went in along with the main luggage it would be a big problem . You see , mine was a laptop bag , but all it contained was a lot of chocolates , a few papers and a Canon Powershot for my Sister. I wanted the chocos and the cam to be intact .

Van Damme didn't even bother . I was waved through and so were all the foreigners , WHO ALL CARRIED BULKY HAND BAGGAGES which obviously were very heavy . They all had a Mohanlal style tilt to the side which they carried their bags on.Oh Come on , it was obvious that they carried a lot more than 7 kgs. It was like the Qatar airways people were bent on harassing the malayalees alone. They did leave out two couples.. Both carried babies and all the stuff associated with them . But all the rest were really unhappy by the time they were inside the gate. Most of them were dudes who toiled to make life good for the average Qatar citizen.They had a right to be treated fairly. Half of them actually didn't know what was happening. They tried a mild protest and gave up. One of them told me that this was because they knew that "resistance is futile". This has been happening for so many years that this was routine and they were kinda OK with it. I was not . Why were these people being treated without respect ? It was sick watching this thing happening.

Flipside :

As MC pointed out , they ( the "harassed" malayalees ) downed liquor like it was the last drops of water they may ever get to taste. Most of them were drunk by the time the plane touched down at TVM . Of course the dread of what the customs officials might do to their pockets had sobered them up . A couple of days after I returned I read that two of us Mallus had got drunk on an airplane , started a fight , tried grabbing an Airhostess' ass and ended up getting pummeled by the air plane security .

When I discussed this with my boss he said that "we Malayalees have to learn to behave with dignity " . He said that he had seen people getting drunk and vomiting all over the place , and the airhostesses had to clean up the vomit after them since the stench usually got a few more of the sober passengers to vomit too. The airhostesses treated you like you were muck in return. If you are from India , in economy class , you were just glorified shit for the Air line crews .

He also said that traveling by business class - even though its expensive - is better since they treat you with some respect and courtesy and you don't get embarrassed by your countryman's behavior...


We are taught to be courteous , carry ourselves with some dignity and not to indulge in alcoholism right from the school. But are we numbskulls ? What good is education to a man if his mind isn't refined ?