Plug for Jet, and Chupke Chupke

If you’re traveling to London from Delhi or Mumbai anytime in the next 2-3 months, I strongly recommend Jet Airways. The service was excellent, the food good and best of all was the in-flight entertainment facility. Large choice of movies and music albums to choose from; I spent half a flight listening to REM’s Around the Sun, The Best of Asha Bhosle and The Carpenters’ Greatest Hits (if you’ve never heard that lovely song “Yesterday Once More” during a takeoff, please arrange a trip expressly for the purpose) and the other half watching films, including Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s delightful Chupke Chupke (which I last saw when I was maybe eight) with the great Dharam paaji. (Really, it’s high time someone wrote a thesis about the superb chemistry between him and Amitabh; they were so much more effective together than AB’s two-hero stints with Vinod Khanna, Shashi Kapoor or Shatrughan Sinha.)

Also saw Hum Tum (much better than I’d expected – had thought it would be overly hip and gimmicky in the way that so much of New Bollywood is) and Batman Begins (so-so; self-conscious, trying way too hard to be a Serious Superhero Movie).

Of course, there is such a thing as being over-enthusiastic about providing good service. The pilots turned the descent to Heathrow into a leisurely tourist show, asking us to “please look out of the windows for a beautiful view of the Thames”, and generally gliding this way and that for optimum effect instead of just getting the damn bird down fast. The view was beautiful to be honest, but personally I prefer touchdowns to be relatively quick once we’ve broken through the clouds. As it is, it’s such a busy airport and it's enervating to see other planes below taking off in your general direction while you’re still 12,000 feet up admiring Westminster Abbey.

(By the way, the reason I’m being conservative and recommending Jet only for the next 2-3 months is because having just started operating along these routes it’s predictable that they’ll have their best wing forward in the early days. I have no idea if they’ll be able to sustain this level of service - if they do, well, serious competition for Virgin, British Airways and especially Air India.)

P.S. Everyone who’s watched Chupke Chupke knows what a fine comedy it is but I was surprised at how frankly sensual a couple of scenes were – especially the one where Dharmendra, masquerading as a driver at his wife Sharmila Tagore’s family house, sneaks into her room for the night and it becomes obvious that she finds this role-playing exciting and wants to engage in some driver-malkin banter even when they’re alone together. Sexual role-playing and kinkiness where you’d least expect it. Ross and Rachel and the Princess Leia gold bikini fetish had nothing on this.