"Both of Us Are Assigned The Same Seat!"

"Your ID proof Sir", said the girl at the check-in desk.  I handed over my ID card issued by the office - a departure from my usual behaviour of carrying the passport, after several admonitions from SK. 

"Could you please give me an aisle seat?" 

"Sure Sir". And soon enough she handed me the boarding card and said, "Your seat number is 3D and the boarding gate is yet to be announced".  I thanked her and left, duly handing over my baggage.  No crowds at the security check meant I had more time to spend on FB - my reading almost having dwindled down to a nought these days.  

The departure was announced and I noticed that the same girl who had issued the boarding pass was manning the counter here too.  I smiled at her as she presented my boarding pass to the machine for record purposes.  Twice she had to repeat as the machine didn't accept.  The third time she possibly overrode the error message and let me in.  

"Excuse me, you are in my seat", I said to the man in the seat 3D. 

"What is your seat number?"

"3D"

He took out his boarding pass and checked it and said, "mine is 3D too"! 

It was my turn to be surprised.  Thankfully the seats on the other side of the row were vacant and I was one of the last to board, I chose to sit in 3C, until the confusion was sorted.  No sooner, two gentlemen walked in with boarding passes for 3A and 3C; I moved in to the only seat that seemed vacant - 1D. My seat-doppelgänger had already sought the attention of one of the hostesses and she came gliding.  "Yes Sir?" "We both seem to be assigned the same seat number".  The lady appeared a bit perplexed.  In the meantime, I checked my boarding pass only to discover to my horror that the name on the boarding pass was not entirely mine! 

"Oh they have got my name wrong too here" I exclaimed.  It said 'Narayana Swamy' and not 'Narayana Sudhir'.  Soon the captain of the flight too was there, his face set in stone.  "Two of us have got the same seat, and they have even got my name wrong on the boarding pass".  Only after uttering this to him did I comprehend that the same boarding pass had been issued twice while I was not checked in at all! I wondered what would happen next.

The airline to avoid embarrassment to itself - a major security breach probably - covered my ass too! My boarding pass was duly brought in to the craft and issued to me inside.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief - what if I was deplaned and I had to face questions, as procedure, and stay back in Pune and not return to Hyderabad?! 

Drama in my life this year reached the sky with this incident!

Image 1: The boarding pass issued

Image 2: My real boarding pass

  

Spectre: Review

Bond movies have never stopped generating curiosity.  They are in the news over the last 5 decades for all the reasons most watch movies.  And, in today's world where media has encompassed every aspect of life, any news is good news.  There were sniggers and sneers along with whistles and bells when it was announced that Monica Bellucci was part of the cast.  Overnight Craig became the darling of the feminists too when he declared famously in an interview that Bond is a misogynist.  He made all the politically correct noises.  

'Spectre' was on my 'to watch' list for all the reasons above.  When AP suggested we watch this - we were meeting after many years and I was watching a movie after many months - I readily jumped at it.  Another friend, MA was kind enough to drop us at the cinema. He refused to join us though as he didn't want to face hellfire at home.  We made it in time - even had time for some corn, coffee and conversations before the movie started.  

The movie opens with a bang - reminds the viewer of the entry in Skyfall too; both the movies are directed by Sam Mendes.  Set amidst a Mexican fair celebrating the dead, the set piece buzzes with high energy accentuated by foot-tapping musci.  The audience gets prepared for more thrilling action and an engaging fare. I was grinning too as the movie shows multiple locales that I have been to in the recent past.

Then the disappointments begin.  The opening number is slow and so un-Bond-like.  It almost felt that I was listening to a lullaby.  You realize that Monica is only making a special appearance and isn't the Bond girl (what a pity)! Mendes tries to bring in the gravitas of the movies based on John le Carre's works and eases the pace and yet compromises on the content - a lousy screenplay and a hackneyed plot.  What you get is a slow movie with a harebrained story.  There are fewer bangs for the buck as the movie has a runtime of nearly two and a half hours.  I just wondered if I was watching Prem Ratan Dhan Payo!  The regular humour that one finds in the Bond films is missing too (or falls so flat that nobody laughed).  A brooding Bond is only as good as his cause.  Without one, he comes across as avoidable sour-face!