"Hawa mein maa ka pyaar"- Indian Airlines

Well its been a week that a new article was posted in here, I was out of station and that did help me to put down few notes on Indian airlines, It was after a long gap that i traveled on Indian airlines and the experience was not that gr8 to say. Well it started of with a bang; we had to board the early morning IA flight from Delhi . Delhi airport one of the biggest in India is one of the worst places to be, it had only 2-4 IA counters operating and we were welcomed by a big queue to get the boarding pass, after all the security check when i had to board the plane the security guy stops me and sends me back to get the cabin baggage tag sealed , worse was that even after my bag was screened through security check the person in charge dint stamp on it and later said it was me who dint keep the tag on , i dint argue anymore it was like talking to a dumb head. Then at the entrance of the IA flight we had a young sweet lady greeting us by saying "NAMASKAR" , I could give her a big smile but not because she was good looking, but for not seeing a age-old lady greeting me. Aha i thought IA has changed , it has changed its name to INDIAN, the logo on the planes tail etc but all that lasted few minutes when suddenly someone offered me toffees and me with all those gentleman mannerism looked up to say thank you thinking that it might be the same or some other young lady, but to my surprise i see a old lady with her wrinkles falling down when she smiled back at me , ufff my senses were back and hitting me " Yehi hai hawa mein maa ka pyar"...felt like i was a 5 yr old kid taking toffees from a granny. Well this was all about my onward journey .on my return journey from Chennai to Delhi there were even big surprises in store for me, first seeing the rush at Chennai airport i felt railway platforms are much comfortable and for things to start off badly my flight was delayed by an hour and there was no communication of the flight being delayed. Wonder when the Indian airports will improve. flight was so delayed that i missed my second flight on sahara from Delhi to lucknow .neither of the airways helped in solving my problem, instead blamed ATC (air traffic control) for the delay and to worsen things more i had to buy a new IA flight ticket to lucknow. Again the flight was delayed and we were seated inside the flight for good 30 mins before it took off and being inside IA flight was pathetic, water leaking from baggage space and the a/c working at bare minimum, wished i had a hand fan. This was one hell of an experience and hope that the Indian airports improve their infrastructure and standards rather than just having cosmetic beauties ...well some even scare away the passengers..hope things change sooner or later..until then to everyone happy flying.