None of my business (class)!

I had my first ever business class upgrade recently while flying from Kolkata to Dubai. When the attendant at the gate called my name, I thought that the flight was full, and they would elbow me out and emotionally manipulate me into taking the next flight.

An upgrade meant that while there was a long line in gate 11, I got priority boarding and took gate 10 with a bunch of pretentious people from a certain demography as mine who documented, through selfies, their momentarily luxurious life every few minutes. The flight had a lot of blue-collar, daily-wage workers commuting, and it is no coincidence that none of them got upgraded.

I always wondered what first class looks like. Now, I know. It's a brilliant marketing move. While coach class walks by passing the business class (and wishing they were sitting in business class), business class walks by passing the first class.

All these years, I would enter the aircraft and stare down at the business class people before moving on to coach. Now, I was one of those people I would stare down at. I had befriended a few strangers in the baggage drop off line. Now, I felt guilty as they walked past my seat, nodding to me briefly and acknowledging my luck rather than stare me down. I shifted uncomfortably and almost mentally apologized to every person who walked by me to the back of the aircraft.

And then, there were switches and buttons. Lots of them. One, to pull my personal TV closer to me. One, to raise myself. One, to recline. One, to lie down like you would lie down on bed. One, to make my arse more comfortable. One, to find my foot rest. I experienced complete cognitive overload and felt out of place trying to figure everything out. The menu was a fat booklet I stole as a souvenir, since the chances of another upgrade or eating lasooni murgh (garlic chicken) for appetizers, braised lamb shank with borlotti beans for the main course, and carrot halwa with dried fruit compote and dark chocolate sauce for dessert 34,000 feet above ground in the next ten years is slim. The gourmet food was out of the world, mostly with long, esoteric French names that were better eaten than enunciated. No plastic, but heavy, high quality china. The headphones were noise cancelling. The pillow was softer, the blanket was a soft, silk comforter. The space was child-free; this is the first flight where I did not hear a single child wailing.

No food trolleys unceremoniously hit my knees. They took your food orders personally, and served you personally, appetizers first (clear table), then the main course (clear table), and then, dessert. They provided hot towels many times, assuming that I was getting tired without doing anything and hence needed to be periodically rejuvenated. The restrooms had fancy perfumes, toilet seat covers, and free dental kits. They cleaned the restrooms and swept the floor dry every now and then. They even gave me a shiny red card for priority visa through a fast gate channel. I was one of the first to deplane.

I have never experienced such opulence and attention to detail in an airplane before. All this, and I kept looking back at hundreds of people huddled like cattle and kept thinking, this business class is not my reality, that is my reality. I had no business taking up double the space and double the resources, eating gourmet food with obscure names, drinking champagne, and pretending that this is my real life. The real me actually walks out of the plane with huge bumps on the head every time after dozing off by the window and banging my head continuously against the window glass. The real me hugs the window during take-off and hungrily takes in the view of Kolkata for the last few moments, teary-eyed, before disappearing among the clouds. This time, I was in the middle of the aircraft and could not even bid a proper goodbye to Kolkata! I think these first-world problems become even more first-world in such opulent spaces.

sunshine