It was on this day, two years back that I had a very scary experience. For the first time in my life, my flight got cancelled and I was stranded at Leh. I had a connecting flight from Delhi which obviously I missed and I was so frantic that I couldn’t think clearly. There was total chaos at the airport as a couple of flights of different airlines got cancelled due to bad weather and no one from the airport was giving us any information. People were angry, some fights broke out, few were scared, discussing their options with friends/family and I was there alone hoping for some miracle to happen, for my flight to arrive so that I could reach Delhi anyhow before 5 pm. But alas, this didn’t happen and I had to spend the next 24 hours in such a mental stress that even thinking of that day makes me jittery.
I had spent a great week in Ladakh and it was my last day there. I had an early morning flight the next day. The weather was perfect and everything was going smoothly. Suddenly around 6 pm it started raining and it was not just any rain – it was pouring cats and dogs! I got to know later that it doesn’t rain much in Leh but that day even the locals were surprised with the unexpected heavy rain which continued the entire night and the next day morning.
I had a 7 am flight, so accordingly I reached the airport and waited there. There were no signs of any delay/cancellation and in fact we even had our security checks. Initially there was an announcement of delay for a few hours which was okay with everyone. Thereafter there was an announcement of delay of other flights also and slowly rumours started spreading as the airport authority was not giving us any answers. It was also stated that the flight has already left from Delhi and I breathed a sigh of relief but little did I know that my sigh of relief was only short-lived! The next announcement informed us that due to bad weather with continuing rain the pilot diverted the flight back to Delhi and I was so angry with that pilot as just a few minutes earlier, an Air India flight to Srinagar took off from Leh. I would like to mention that due to location of the Leh airport, commercial flights take off and land only in the morning and as my luck would have it, the rain stopped after 11 am and bright sunshine took place of gloomy clouds. But as commercial flights cannot operate after morning hours we had no other option but to wait for the airport authorities to inform us about alternate flight arrangements.
It was after 3 pm that I got to know that there will be a flight arranged for us the next day morning but till that time it was such a mayhem at the airport. I got a few extra hours at Leh but I was not in mental state to enjoy those. It is during such times we get know that we are so small and powerless in front of nature and it is best to remain calm and patient in such situations (which I was not). Today while remembering that day I laugh at myself but that day I was crying as I didn’t know how would I reach home and everything was so uncertain.
There is a saying in Ladakh - Mumbai’s fashion and Ladakh’s weather are never predictable and I got a first-hand experience of the latter!