My First Flight Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

My First Flight
The Silkair-flight took off
at Chennai Airport,
where we paid sixty six rupees for two idlies
which cost six rupees elsewhere.
The wide national highways
seemed narrow lanes.
When the flight seemed moving
in snail's pace over the Bay of Bengal,
I told my wife, 'we'd be too late to Singapore'.
Our neighbour asked me if it was our maiden flight
and told the air-hostess to guide us reach
the flight to Melbourne at Singapore Airport
where in dazzling lights, escalators and Skytrains,
people would be missing out during transit.
I was very precautious to write my 'Will'
and handed it over to my daughter,
for dividing my earnings incase anything untoward happened
as there is danger from the terror, lightning and thunder
and also from the pilot's mishandling of situations.

Round patches of cumulous clouds were seen
over the surface of sea and land.
The flight was above thirty five thousand feet
flying in the speed of more than 900 k.ms/hour.
The journey of sixteen hours fled off without boring
as the avuncular hostesses supplied the food-packets,
fruits, drinks, breads, .. to keep us in good humour.
It was a culture shock to me at Singapore
where people of all the Asian nations and others
boarded the flight to Melbourne.
For myself it was a travel from the austral Asian city
to the austral Australian city but in a route different
from the one traversed by the ancient Tamils
from the lost Lemurian continent to Australian coasts.
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