31/ 100 Shutter Dog
The Journey to Varanasi – Part 4
A few days ago I mentioned our amusement about the fact that people in India seem to be given jobs simply because they needed something for them to do. The unusual, and probably pointless, job-of-the-day today was runway supervisor.
Having sat on our plane for about an hour, waiting for the military aircraft to finish whatever they were doing, we eventually taxied out onto the runway with a great view of some big gun turrets in the middle of the airfield. Because there didn’t seem to be any taxiways we had to bounce slowly down the entire length of the runway in order to turn around and take off. Whilst it was a very ponderous part of the trip it did give us the opportunity to see the ground staff stood along the entire length of the runway at roughly 200m intervals.
There were loads of them and they each had a picnic umbrella and a plastic chair. Some of them stood as we passed but most of them just stayed seated. Their exact purpose was unknown (the cabin crew didn’t know when I asked them either) but it did seem like a very relaxing job, especially if you like planes.
The short flight to Delhi was uneventful and we spent most of it watching the cabin crew attempt to speed-serve lunch to those passengers who had pre-booked it. We were only in the air for about 40 minutes so they had to race up and down the aisle dishing out unpleasant looking lunch (I was SO glad I opted for a tasty sandwich in the airport) whilst gently encouraging the diners not to dilly-dally. They no sooner whipped away the empty trays and we were landing at Delhi airport’s terminal 2.
