Flying low

What's ailing Air France? The airline has had a sordid last little while, lurching from bad press to the worst possible news, all in the span of a few weeks.

First there were the damning reports that the airline had ill-treated Indian passengers stranded overnight at Paris airport. The angry passengers alleged that they had been forced to spend the night uncomfortably in the airport lounge, while those with American passports were granted transit visas -- and overnight accommodation. What's more, they alleged that they were served just one sandwich and a bottle of water during the 12-hour layover.

As if bad publicity wasn't bad enough, a second set of passengers too complained about similar ill-treatment at Paris airport. The second group joined hands with the first, and the accounts seemed to take on a shrill, even melodramatic, tone. The airline offered monetary compensation. The passengers first said it wasn't about the money, and then said they'd go to court to demand more money. What may have started off as a legitimate fight against European high-handedness degenerated into a case of crying wolf.

What mystifies me about this entire episode is the airline's response -- or the utter lack of it. Even if I wasn't a PR pundit, I'd know that the first step towards stemming the damage would be to call a press conference. Instead, the company issued an impersonal press release which "apologised for the inconvenience caused". With no official available for comment, newspapers ran only the side of the story they had access to -- the passenger accounts.

In the bargain, many valuable insights were lost. As V pointed out to me, this is hardly the first time that Indian passengers have been denied transit visas at Charles de Gaulle. He says it is almost a weekly occurrence, one that airline officials have little control over. Transit visas are issued by the French police, who routinely deny them to Indians and Chinese, among others, to ward off illegal immigrants.

Surely, transit passengers with legit visas are different from "pigeons" who flush their passports down during flights and claim asylum? But it seems like the French police don't make this distinction. As V was at pains to explain to me, this isn't just an airline problem, it's a diplomatic problem. But not many know about this, because the airline hasn't been forthcoming about it.

But the lowest point has undoubtedly been the tragic loss of Flight 447. It made me realise that the A380 age has made us so brazen about crossing time zones and continents. When a jumbo jet disappears into thin air without so much as a distress call, you're reminded both of your mortality and your utter insignificance in the universe's larger scheme of things.

An ode to evenings

I've often wondered what time of day I most associate with -- when I feel most alive and receptive to the sights and sounds around me. I like early mornings because they're so rare in my world. I like the crisp morning air that crackles with promise, and watching fathers drop their children to school makes me nostalgic about times gone by. Until recently, I used to be a creature of the night, coming to life just as everyone else was ready to call it a day.

But increasingly, I feel most drawn to dusk -- that time when the sun has set but the sky is still full of light. Watching the birds call out to each other and snooze on the branches of the tree outside my office window, I feel the mad urge to be elsewhere. Ideally, in an open-air cafe, alone with coffee and contemplation. Being indoors -- as I often am, at work -- at this time makes me melancholic.

I think this is a quirk my mother has handed down to me -- to her, as to me, evenings are when we contemplate everything that's right about our lives, before the dark of the night stirs up a cauldron of worries. When my brother and I were young, growing up in our grandparents' home in Ratlam, an utterly nondescript town in Madhya Pradesh, evenings were meant for cricket. My mother would bowl -- and when we could connect bat to ball -- my brother and I would compete to hit the ball outside the periphery of our sprawling garden. Just as the sun was beginning to set over this town, dotted with squat houses and desert shrubbery, we would retreat indoors to the warmth of loving grandparents and the smell of good food.

My grandfather passed away at the ripe old age of 95, a few years ago. With his passing, the home I grew up in lost the spirit I'd always associated with it. I haven't been back to Ratlam since, or witnessed the magic of sunset on the terrace, surrounded by the call of birds on the tamarind tree, and the red gulmohar blossoms bobbing in the wind.

But my love affair with dusk continues. In these wonderful, pre-monsoon evenings, when the promise of rain hovers over a muggy city, I sometimes wish I could slow down and savour the moment. I miss Paris, the city that has honed what we'd call "chilling out" into a serious art form. Come sundown, Paris puts on her prettiest dress and unwinds over coffee and several cigarettes in a street-side cafe. The business-like bustle of the day gives way to a slower, more decadent vibe. The city exhales and raises a toast to life. And locals and visitors alike stop to take a big sip of this beautiful city.