Vayudoot's final landing

Vayudoot’s final landing

This morning the papers carried the news that Vayudoot was to be officially closed down. It is not a day too early. This was an enterprise that no one had a clear idea about its purpose and also its business plan. Generally it was used to park retired or unwanted people from Indian Airlines and Air India.

I was involved in the launch of Vayudoot in an indirect way. I used to work for Clarion-McCann Advertising which at that time was India’s second largest advertising agency. Among other clients we also handled the advertising of Indian Airlines out of our Delhi office. I was the Group Manager on that account. One Saturday morning (17 January 1981) my family and I had just locked our apartment door and were climbing down the steps for a rare outing. I saw my Regional Manager walking up the stairs.

He had just got a call from Indian Airlines informing him that a new airline called Vayudoot was being launched from Gauhati on Tuesday, January 20.Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had agreed to inaugurate the airline. A launch ad had to be prepared for release in the Eastern papers on that day. As had happened several times before, my family reluctantly traced their steps back to home.

I reached my office that Saturday by 11 am after alerting my creative team. We had the ad layout ready by 2 pm. Knowing the strange ways of public sector companies things got stuck at that stage. Rajeev Gandhi’s old school chum, Romi Chopra worked at Hindustan Thompson, India’s largest ad agency. That agency had been given the task of developing the Vayudoot logo. As luck would have it the creative team there was out on an offsite meeting. By the time we got the logo from them it was past 6 pm. This was included in the ad and I took the final artwork to the Indian Airlines Public Relations Manager at his house for final clearance. By the time I got back to me office it was 9pm.

Those days newspapers still required zinc blocks for printing ads. I took our artwork to the block maker, who had also been alerted, at around 10 pm. I received the blocks at around 4 am on Sunday. I took them directly to Palam airport to hand it over to an Indian Airlines executive who was flying to Gauhati via Calcutta for the inauguration. He was to hand over the blocks to The Statesman, Assam Tribune and other local papers.

I finally returned home after breakfast. This meant I was out of my home for around 24 hrs just for this one project. The ad appeared as scheduled on Tuesday to coincide with the inaugural flight.

My adventure with Vayudoot did not end there. By then I had moved to another company that was in to automotive and engineering products. I had to make several visits to Punjab for promoting our products for use in agricultural machinery. The most convenient means of travel was the Vayudoot flight from Delhi to Ludhiana. The flight would generally have less than 20 passengers, most of them sikh NRIs speaking with a British or Canadian accent. On one flight there was a lone passenger sitting in the last row across the aisle from me. When the steward brought the tray of sweets to him there were only two pieces left. The passenger in a disparaging tone said, “Can’t Vayudoot afford even sweets?”The steward got so annoyed that he took a fresh bag of sweets from the overhead locker and almost dumped it on the passenger.

Meanwhile, the Haryana businessmen were envious that Punjab had been given a flight. They insisted that Haryana too should have one. So, the same Vayudoot flight would make a transit halt at Hissar airport. All the technical procedures would be followed including a policeman at the bottom of the steps. In none of my trips did I ever come across a passenger getting down or boarding the flight at Hissar. On one return flight when we took off from Ludhiana the pilot announced that we were flying from Ludhiana to Delhi via Hissar. My colleague and I slept off. Suddenly we heard the pilot announce that we were about to land in Delhi. Apparently, as there were no passengers interested in Hissar the pilot had decided to overfly that town. A month later the Ludhiana businessmen gave an ultimatum to Vayudoot, “Either give us a direct flight, or we will boycott Vayudoot.” That was the end of the Hissar halt.

I don’t think anyone is going to mourn the demise of Vayudoot.It was an experiment that failed, particularly because no one really had their heart in it.

The Great School Chase

The Great School Chase.

Two days after my granddaughter was born I found my son and daughter-in-law in intense discussion. I asked them whether I could be of any help. I was stumped when my son said that they were worried as they had to think of a suitable school for their child four years on. Here were the two set of grandparents still debating about which genes baby Janvi had inherited and it seemed it was already time for her to pack her tiffin box and head to school.

To my wife’s dismay her school, Bishop Cotton's on St. Mark’s Road, was vetoed immediately. Next was my daughter-in-law’s school,Sophia's on Palace Road. Finally, it was decided that the most suitable one would be a third one where the maternal grandmother had high level influence.

When Janvi was a little over fifteen months old the hunt for a play school started. School A was great but too expensive. School B looked a bit tacky. I did not realize that even play schools had a pecking order and there was a selection process. As the only one in the family who generally had a lot of idle time I was the designated training manager to prepare Janvi for her play school interview.

On Day 1 I began with the obvious question. “What is your name?” The fact that her nanny watched TV on the sly in the parents’ absence became obvious when Janvi struck a pose and lisped in a sing song voice, “My name is Sheila, Sheila...”Debriefing her was time consuming and exhausting. Then it was time for nursery rhymes. I took out my iPad and logged in to YouTube. It was an education for me that long familiar nursery rhymes could be sung or recited in so many different ways depending on who had uploaded them. I stuck to the UK versions in preference to the American ones.

Meanwhile my son and daughter-in -law were doing some background research work on the likely questions that would be asked at the interview. I am sure even an IIT-JEE aspirant would not be going through all this. Does Janvi know where her father works? Janvi, show your left toe…

At the age of two Janvi is now ensconced happily in her play school. But this is only the beginning. In another two years her real test will come when she has to move to a regular school. A strategy has already been put in place. Janvi’s parents have bought an apartment in the geographical vicinity of the targeted school so that there is no last minute hitch in her eligibility.

A similar drama is being acted out in London where my other daughter-in -law is traipsing from play school to play school to register my grandson for selection for the next academic year. Shantanu is all of eight months old.

Who says the younger generation has life on a platter.

In search of Nessie, Whiskey and Gowf

Though I visited the UK several times I did not find time to see Scotland. This time I made sure I fulfilled that desire. Thanks to the power of the internet (and the Indian credit card) I could plan out the complete schedule and also make all the bookings and payment sitting in Bangalore.

Three destinations were definite. My wife wanted to see Loch Ness. My Shangri La would be the whiskey trail and St. Andrews old golf course. The challenge would be in drawing up an itinerary that would not be cumbersome or tiring.

The easiest would have been to make Edinburgh as the base and take tours from there. That seemed boring. After a lot of permutations and combinations it was decided that the journey would start in Inverness.

Day 1

Flight: London to Inverness. The cheapest flight was the 7.00 am easyJet from Luton airport. I booked that. Sitting in Bangalore I did not realize that the airport was 54 miles from my son’s place. It took us over an hour to reach by car, even at 4.00 am. We saw a lot of well-dressed young people on the road. I was pretty impressed at their diligence and activity on a Sunday morning till my son told me that it was the Saturday night party crowd returning home.

Inverness airport is a sleepy little place that reminded me of small town Indian airports, only much cleaner.

Visiting Loch Ness is slightly confusing. The lake is so huge that every little village claims that it is closest to the Loch. Inverness would have been the first choice, but then it is boring staying in a town. At my son’s suggestion, I booked a room in a small hotel at a quaint little village called Drumnadrochit. In the compound there was a knick knack store that also did booking for a Loch Ness cruise. The lady there was friendly and immediately booked us on the next cruise aboard an impressive sounding boat called Nessie Hunter. Later we found that the boat was piloted by her husband, George Edwards, who in 1987 recorded the greatest known depth of Loch Ness at 812 feet or 248 metres.

During the one hour cruise the skipper makes you feel that Nessie may pop up any moment, so the expectation is palpable. I am sure this happens thousands of times with gullible tourists straining their eyes toward the horizon.

This is exactly the feeling one gets at Masai Mara in Kenya. The Land Cruiser driver keeps on feeding you with the expectation that a lion will spring out of the bush at your vehicle for a photo op.

After the cruise there is nothing else one can do except walk around the village. In Drumnadrochit every one seems to be related to somebody or the other.

  We were not keen on the four course dinner at the hotel so I asked the receptionist whether we could get some simple veggie items.

The girl said she would persuade the cook to rustle up something for us. Later we found that the cook was her mother !

Day 2

We took the 9.00 am bus to Inverness railway station. My wife and I were the only passengers. Later the train took us to Keith, the nearest town to Dufftown, our base for the whiskey tour. Most of these places can be described, like in the old westerns, as ‘one horse towns’. Back in Bangalore, I had thought that everyone knows everyone in these places. I was wrong. The woman taxi driver from Keith had no idea where the impressive sounding Fernbank House (the B&B where we were staying) was. We ended up getting lost around Dufftown, till a neighbourhood store set us on the right path.

I must confess, the B&B was pretty luxurious and the landlady very hospitable. 

As it was raining she even dropped us to the nearby Glenfiddich distillery.

Glenfiddich welcomes visitors to their facility and has a full-fledged hospitality team that handles visits.

It is a very clean distillery except for the smell of cooking ingredients of the whiskey. The highlight of the tour is the free sampling of 12, 15 and 18 years Glenfiddich single malt.

Dufftown is unique in the world. There is nowhere else, even in Scotland, with such a concentration of distilleries.As the saying goes:

"Rome was built on seven hills,
Dufftown stands on seven stills"

My wife and I got lost on the way out of the distillery. Instead of walking towards our B&B we ended up at the town centre. 

Our landlady again bailed us out by coming to pick us up.

We had a quiet dinner in a quaint little eatery called Noah’s Ark, run by an ex-advertising executive. 

Standing outside the cafe I had this brilliant view of two parallel rainbows. A first in my life.

Day 3

Day 3 started with a hearty breakfast and then it was off to Keith to catch the train to Aberdeen, where we needed to change trains for Edinburgh. 

At Aberdeen my wife got stung on the leg by a bee. The station staff was less than reassuring. They told us that if she was allergic then her face would immediately swell up and she would have difficulty breathing and would need to see a GP ! The alternate solution was to get vinegar from the cafe and rub it on the affected area. That’s what we ended up doing.

The rail journey to Edinburgh was along the coast. We had a spectacular view of the sea right till we reached the station. 

On their websites most hotels claim that they are just across the road from the railway or bus station. I was taken in similarly by information provided by the hotel where we stayed, Radisson Blu. My wife and I had to wheel our cases uphill against a high force wind. In fact my cap flew away twice. Finally we reached our destination. 

A quick check-in and we were back in the station to catch the train to Leuchars, the station to reach St. Andrews golf course.

St. Andrews is basically a village that gained international fame through its excellent championship golf courses.

For a golfer, visiting the Old Course has the same status as Tirupati, Mecca or the Vatican. It was my dream for a long time to breathe the air here. After a few photographs of me against the background of the course (to prove to my pals that I actually visited the course) it was off to the shop to buy some mementos to give to my golf pals. Like in any other tourist spot the prices were a rip off. 

After a final longing look at the clubhouse it was back to the station to catch the train to Edinburgh.That evening we just walked along the Royal Mile and saw the sights.

Day 4

As our hotel was located in the Royal Mile we just had to walk up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. We were warned that paying money to see the inside of the castle was a big waste so we made do with a photo op near the entrance.

The 4 1/2 hour train journey back to London was uneventful. One good thing about rail travel in the UK is that if you are in First Class then you reach your destination well fed without having to shell out more money. Obviously I took full advantage of the choice of beverages on offer.

Sitting opposite us was a woman with an interesting choice of jewellery and hair clips. All were in the shape of a butterfly.The lady in the next seat was elegantly dressed indicating she had returned from a party. It turned out to be true.We could hear her talking on the phone complaining about some girl in a polka dot dress with a wine glass in her hand dancing with someone called Mark, presumably her son.She was pretty disapproving about the whole episode. Just when the conversation was getting interesting the conductor intervened and asked her to disconnect as our compartment was designated to be a quiet one.

At London’s King Cross station I wanted to take a taxi home. My wife bring more adventurous (and more prudent with money) insisted that we take the Underground. In the end this proved more practical and we were back in the warmth of our base in about 20 minutes.

Sometime in the future I would like to plan a cruise along the Norwegian fjord. I wonder what the internet will have in store for me.