Hic...hic...hic, why can’t I write this damn diary? Oopsh, page got torn because I used a long nail and not a pen. Why did that happen? Power of shingle malt which I shared with some pilot friends, make no mishtake, they are the shalt of the earth, I mean pilots. No pilots, planes go kaput. Then no flights, no aviation, no DGCA, no money, no shingle malt. Got it, Shteve?
So what if we diluted punishment for pilots reporting shoshed...I mean sloshed. Dilution ish good, but can’t be overdone. Good Scotch losht its flavour. Good pilots losht flavour without dilution. We in the DGCA are brainy people, show pilot loshe licence only if he/she reported for duty drunk for the third time.... Mind you, third time. Before, licence canshelled the shecond time. So we gave them one more chance.
Hic...hic...hic. What the heck, yaar. Thish ish liberalisation, let us go for it. From two chances to three. Shomething had to be done because pilots are rare commodities, preshius.... We don’t pay them for months, we don’t allow them to fly with female cabin crew on their laps. They should have privileges, man. They are leaving us in droves, how can we operate planes? With drones? Elshwhere aviation gets bigger. That Shingapore Airlines jumbo was mindblogging...I mean, mindboggling. You should have sheen the Shcotch at their parties...not pegs but huge mugs. That ish life, yaar. In our piddling country, we shushpend pilots and cancel licences if pilots are found drunk twice. Now DGCA ish for liberalisation, we made it three. Three cheers to that, hic...hic...hic.
I told you pilots becoming scarce commodity in our country. Sho many rules and restrictions for scarce pilots. Where ish the entertainment for them? Only with the ministers. One wash generous, like Karan in Mahabharat. Shold off all profitable routes to his friends in rival airlines. Then he merged the unmergable, Indian Airlines and Air India. What came out of it, I don’t know. Shomething weird. We then had a civil aviation minister from rural UP. Yes, UP! Aviation went to dark ages, minister who belonged to the farm lobby told us to shave foreign exchange, should use bullock carts instead of aviation fuel. No drinks. Female cabin crew only in sharees, full-sleeved blouses, nothing showing, can’t use mobiles or make-up though he recommended a special face cream from eastern UP with 45 per cent fresh cow dung. Before Lok Sabha polls, this minister was planning chastity belts for female cabin crew! You know the long strike which followed, many pilots left us but government not bothered. Sho long as shingle malt available, we are not bothered. The new civil aviation minister? No one’s heard of him. Wants no relatives appointed. Doesn’t he know that we are one big family?
The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 [AT] gmail [DOT] com
