Musings and Mutterings: Sandeep Dahiya (www.sandeepdahiya.com)

 

Afghanistan is a beautiful but bloodied land. So many dreams die even before they take birth. But a 13-year-old boy dreamt big and high. He took a gutsy step to fulfill his dream of going to Iran. A brusque and curt plan propelled by boyhood’s innocence where there is hardly any difference between facts and fancy.

On a promising Sunday morning, dressed in white kurta-pyjama, he managed to sneak into Kabul airport and got mixed in a queue of passengers going to board a plane and occupied his free, unauthorized seat in the plane’s rear wheel well, his private business class in the internal compartment housing the landing gear.

He had come all prepared. His luggage included ‘a small red-colored audio speaker’. The boy must be in love with it. Perfect. But he boarded the wrong plane. The plane was bound for India rather than Iran.

Flying over 40,000 feet, where temperature drops to minus 50 degree Celsius and oxygen just a small fraction of what it’s at the sea level, he landed at Delhi airport after the 90-minute flight. A miracle survivor in the unheated and unpressurized wheel well. Hypoxia and hypothermia make mortality rate as high as 80 percent for such stowaway passengers. Then there is a great risk of getting fatally injured by the movement of the landing gear. Or one may fall during flight or while landing due to the sheer shock of it.

The boy has entered the elite club of 132 such passengers who travelled in landing gear compartment between 1947 to 2025 (according to the US Federal Aviation Administration). But the boy didn’t know that it takes more than boarding a plane to successfully reach the destination. He could barely feel the solicitous sensation and playful air of a boy realizing his dream. He had no clue how and where to go, so was easily spotted by the security personnel. Sadly the Indian authorities had no ways to reward him for his feat. Under the immigration laws there was just one option. He was made to board the same return flight in the evening. But inside the aircraft this time.

Well, his stowaway journey earned him a stopover at the IGI, New Delhi and a normal ticket back home apart from the status of few rare surviving stowaways. He is still a kid and I’m sure will retain his spirits and share all about his popular journey with his friends. He definitely has dreams of flying. But he needs to work, study, turn wise, skilled and then board a legal flight to pursue his Iranian dreams.

Given his raw cache of guts he can surely do this. He has lots of stamina apart from bundles of courage. But courage and stamina should never be put to such wayward, random plans. There is always a proper, legal way of realizing one’s high-flying dreams.

His courage is irrefutable and incredulous. He possesses the seeds of a handsome stalwart. He just needs to tone down the thundering pitch of raw valor and guide it for proper objectives. Rather, the Afghan authorities need to take note of his potential and guide him for better plans than stowaway flights.