Chaos reigns in the skies. Delayed flights, stranded passengers, cancelled schedules, and angry crowds waving boarding passes like protest flags.
As I watch this spectacle, a thought tiptoes into my mind.
India has the maximum number of road accidents in the world. And many of these accidents happen because drivers fall asleep at the wheel, or because they are not in their best state due to lack of rest.
Yet nobody seems shocked.
Once, while travelling in Europe some years ago, I hired a vehicle from Belgium to take our small group around. The driver was a cheerful fellow named Pete. I noticed he kept a notebook with him, diligently filling numbers in it every few hours. Being curious, I asked him what it was. To my surprise, he explained that he was legally required to record the miles he drove per day. And there was a limit to it.
The police could stop the vehicle anywhere and inspect those papers. If he crossed that limit by even a few miles, the trip would be cancelled right there, we would all be penalised, and his licence suspended.
Imagine that. A system where the law protects human life first. A system where rest is considered so important that it is treated like a matter of national safety. Where the government ensures that drivers are not pushed beyond endurance simply to save time or money. So that they would not endanger themselves or hundreds on the roads.
Back home our truck drivers, taxi drivers, and bus drivers often drive for days without proper rest. They gulp tea, chew tobacco, splash water on their faces, fight sleep, and push themselves like machines. They do it because they need the money and perhaps because they believe they have no other choice.
And thousands die every year. Thousands of families break. The nation mourns quietly and moves on.
And yet, instead of pointing our legal guns at the drivers on the highways, we swivel them upward like anti- aircraft guns and point them at pilots. Pilots who have not caused a single air crash due to lack of sleep. Pilots who can even put their plane on auto-pilot and have a nap when they want.
Pilots whose flight records are better than most government departments would ever dare to boast about.
Why this sudden rage against a successful airline business?
Why the dramatic enforcement?
Oh yes, of course, they say it is the law. The same way the law is used by the ED, the IT, and the police?
When the law begins to look like a stick used to beat down those who do well, instead of a shield to protect them, something begins to smell wrong.
It is just a thought, an Indigo one. But sometimes a thought is enough to make a nation to stop yelling at the airline online only, and ask some tough questions.
Will you?