The pilot is preparing the plane for yet another landing. As usual, clearance comes, the landing gears appear, run way is in sight, the plane climbs down.. everything as usual..
And suddenly the pilot notices something unusual, something moving on the run away. What the hell on earth, as soon as you land on earth?!?! Oops its some animal!
Obviously the animal is not trained to look out for landing planes, nor is this an on road traffic to honk and wait for the animal to move. This is a damn serious plane landing, and the pilot had no other go but to apply the emergency brakes and to hope for the best.
Hope? Yes it is the only thing you can do, because praying does not work, for God wont help you because you lost the last chance given to you while voting.
And then? Well, the best didn’t happen, i.e the animal – a blue bull, neel gai, died on the spot on the runway, by being run over by AN AEROPLANE!!!
This most bizzare incident of an animal being run over by an aeroplane happened on the runway of Kanpur, in Uttarpradesh yesterday.
If there were a newspaper for animals, then the headline next day would have been, ‘Now danger for animals from the skies too, a flying human machine killed a blue bull’
My point is pretty simple. How on earth did an animal enter into an airport in the first place? If you cant provide this basic facility for an airport, then why the hell have that airport in the first place? Today it was an innocent bull, tomorrow it might as well be a person wanting to commit suicide in a unique way! Or a terrorist might send a bull with bombs attached to it.
While on the one hand we have modern international airports coming on in the IT hotspots like Bangalore, Hyderabad, etc, here on the other hand we have airports which call themselves places where planes land, and yet dont even have a basic wall which can’t even prevent a heavy bull from jumping it, if not a monkey!
Whats more interesting! The news also says that it is ‘common’ for bulls to enter the premises of airport in Kanpur. Common? come on, now I am not sure who is the dumb animal here, the blue bull, or the airport authorities?
A few years ago in the same airport, the then UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s plane was unable to take off because a few bulls blocked the runway! What did he do about it? Nothing, just waited for the bulls to be moved away. And he is a political leader in that state?! And whats the alternative for Mulayam in UP? Its Mayawati, and all she does is celebrate her birthday as if its total useless for all others to be born!
And what is the Airport Authority of India doing about it? Well, this airport is not an exceptional case. There are many such part time airports in the country where one can often see jackals, dogs, cows etc on the run way.
What if in this incident there were human casualties too, had the plane skid down the runway? Well, I am not saying this because I consider human lives more precious than that of the bull that died. If all the bulls had voting rights, then the politicians of this country would not have been NPAs (Non Performing Assets). Since humans love to save their lives at any cost, I would urge all kanpur or any such ‘so called airport’ bound passengers in the future, not to board the plane, nor to book any plane tickets, till you are sure that atleast a proper wall exists around those airports to ensure no innocent animals can creep in. Else, what you think to be a safe landing, might actually be your safe passage to heaven.
The next time I have to take a flight within India, the first thing I would be doing is to open Google Maps and see whether the destination airport has a compound wall. Udupi being my native, let me first check about Mangalore airport now, else it will be like a Konkani saying ‘ratri paLayil baayintu, disaach vacchunu poDche’ meaning ‘Inspite of seeing a well in the night, fell in during the day.’ :)
Can somebody in the mean time please explain to our airport authorities about the meaning of an airport? Their current definition seems to be, ‘An Airport is a long stretch of road long enough for a plane to land as shortly as possible.’ . Please also tell them that, planes cant wait in the air and honk while landing, if there are some bulls anywhere on that long stretch of road.
Funny people live on this planet :)
