Chapter 1

It was a lonely night. He was experiencing the most tumultous night of his life. He had not seen something that dastardly all his life. The phone call that came in the evening had changed his life for good, he could never be normal again. The thunder, the lightning that the news thrust on his head had him hustling and bustling for reason to think normal. It was a very testing period, testing of sorts, something that he was thinking about facing for quite a while now. He wanted to escape all this immediately, but couldn't even think about it. The flight was slowly taking off. His inside was playing games with him. The lights were glaring. As the flight went up off the wheels and the runway, he could slowly see the glaring lights vanishing into the encircling darkness and the lights slowly dimming, giving us the impression of a dark printed circuit board, and lights giving on and off signals every five or ten seconds. It was a very beautiful sight, but what was very heartening to note was that Mr.Mehra wasn't in any kind of mood to enjoy beauty.

As the flight took off, the cabin crew started clapping. There were whistles and screams. Then came an announcement on the Public Address System, "Dear passengers, We are very glad to inform you that this is the 400th flight of our pilot Mr. Narayan Seshadri this year. This is the first time an Indian has flown four hundred flights in a year, and due to Mr.Seshadri's extended service to the airlines, and vast help added as a single individual to the system here, we would like to organize a very special flight today giving all of you and Mr.Seshadri a very memorable time."

Memorable, the word brought back memories to Mehra. There were happy ones, aplenty, abounding. But suddenly, like a rock having hit him, he got a phone call which had him rushing now to Mumbai. As he was thinking on how to act, out came Seshadri addressing the passengers.