I Am Neither a Terrorist & nor a Smuggler : My First Flight Experience

Just a year back, I had my first flight experience. Everyone around me,my friends,classmates, knew I was flying for the first time.Ofcourse, they’ll know. I had started announcing it to them and sharing my anxiety with them, a week well in advance! Plus, my mom used to say how beautiful the world seems from atop. Literally like a fairyland.” Moving in the clouds should definitely be a fun”, I wondered.

All my dreams got wings, when I, all due to my sem-end exams, could not accompany my parents to Bangalore for an occassion.Therefore, abandoning the idea of 36 hours of train journey and knowing how desperate I was to fly, my parents decided to book the flight tickets for me.2 weeks after they were to travel.One of the disadvantages of joining your family late during occasions is, your luggage increases. All the stuffs that they missed out, they’ll order you to bring along. The same was the case with me. The occasion, was a small but an important family gathering at our place in Bangalore.The place where we live in Bangalore, has (probably)no flour mills nearby. And sweets being an  important part of any ceremony, mom needed powdered sugar and besan(Gram Flour) very badly.(I know, there are plenty of sweet shops there,in Bangalore, but mumma prefers homemade sweets,because she believes there’s love and homeliness stuffed inside them).Also,a house warming ceremony popped up at another cousin’s place, scheduled just a few days after I was to arrive in the IT hub.Mom,aked me to purchase some house warming present for her.I decided to buy a night lamp.It was beautiful with paper fishes moving inside them-a total aquarium kind of feeling.I got it nicely packed in a pink gift wrapper and added it to my already overloaded luggage along with the besan and powdered sugar.When,it was the time to put the add-ons to my luggage, I found this lamp in danger.So,I decided to carry it in a separate handbag.My flight was scheduled at 9:00 am. Dad had requested his office colleague to drop me to the airport. I remember I had woken up at 5:00 that day, all the result of fretfulness. Uncle came to pick me up at around 6 and the roads being deserted at this hour of morning, we reached the airport in less than 30 minutes, which implies ,I was left there to watch the flight-notice of all the flights arriving and departing between the given time period.I had submitted all my bags for the security check except my handbag and was roaming around nervously. I had already inquired about my flight, of where I was supposed to go, everything .In short, almost everybody there knew where was I flying! :PI was having coffee when I suddenly heard the security personnel calling me. I rushed there to know what the problem was. He was holding my lamp-bag.“Kya hai ismai,bulb hai?”“Haa.Lamp hai.Kyon?”“Yeh packing apko kholke dikhani padegi.”“Par kyon?”“Bulb detect hua hai.”“Toh?Mai bata rahi hoon na,Lamp hai!Kisiko as a gift dena hai.”“Aapko pata hai,Bomb banane mai bhi bulb ka use kiya jaata hai?”I was like,”OMG!Am I thought of as a terrorist here?”I quite nicely opened up the packing and showed him how beautiful the lamp it was. But my first-time-experience decided not to leave me so easily. Just after I somehow packed it back, there came another security personnel holding my trolley-bag.The same overloaded trolley-bag.“Yeh aapka bag hai?”“Haa.Ab kya hua?”(Was already annoyed!)“Yeh bag aapko open karke dikhana padega!”“Yeh 'itna bada' bag?”“Haa.Ismai kuch powdered material detect hua hai!”I was so angry on my mommy then. Who gave the idea to her of sending the powdered sugar and besan with me?!“Yeh dekho.Yeh powdered sugar and yeh besan”,I said holding both the  packets,one in each hand.That individual let me keep the besan back in my bag but took away the sugar to further test it.I asked the other one, who had checked my lamp, of why sugar was being discriminated.He so nicely said “White colored toh drugs bhi hotey hai!”And I was yet again left dumbstruck.OMG! First,a terrorist and now a smuggler?I saw that person literally checking it with some weird machine and smelling it too. Then he came back to me and asked me to pack everything back.Not to forget,the people there,looking suspiciously at me!Did my nervousness too send out wrong signals to them? Can somebody’s first flight experience be better than this? :P