A Flight into Time

It is early dawn. We are flying West and the sun is rising behind us. Tehran is visible on the slopes of the AlBurz mountains; and just beyond lie the glimmering blue waters of the Caspian Sea. The poor Iranians live on the lower slopes of the Alburz and the rich ones live as we move up the slopes. Our Boeing is doing good on fuel. There is an early morning rush as the night curfew on the European airports is about to be lifted. The Iranian radio system is outdated and one has to shout on the HF frequency to give a position reports. Another cup of tea arrives. It will take about two hours to cross Turkey, the next country, before we are in the Athens Flight Information region and into Athens.

Greece is not just any other country of 10 million. Its mythology gave the earliest fundamentals of a faith. ‘Zeus’ is the sky father. His twelve Olympians are ’Hera’, his wife; ’Poseidon’, the god of the sea; ’Apollo’ the sun god; ’Aphrodite’ is the goddess of love and ’Athena’ is the goddess of wisdom. They all maintain an order in the cosmos. ’Hades’, the king of the underworld creates chaos or disorder and great men like ’Hercules’ fight for the good. And break the barrier between the man and god.

’’Pakistan 805. Change over to Ankara 125.6. Khuda Hafiz’’, Iranian controller breaks my chain of thoughts. Flying over the Ararat mountains, we enter Turkey. The names of waypoints change from familiar Shiraz, Isfahan to abstract words like Elazig, Van and Gemerk. We transfer to Ankara. ’’Ankara. Yakshimlaar. Position Elazig. Level 340. Estimating Van 30 past the hour’’. Lake Van, the biggest water body on the ‘Anatolian plateau’, is right on the track and a vertical development dark cumulonimbus cloud is sitting over it. We request Ankara to allow us to fly 20 miles to the left of track. It is getting cloudier. The ground is becoming greener having left behind the desolate reaches of the Iranian landscape.

From Ankara, we turn South towards Izmir on the border between Turkey and Greece. It is over Izmir that one feels that Greece is not too far. The Aegean sea is on the right while the Mediterranean spreads out on the left. It is mindboggling to think how Alexander managed a horse ride from Macedonia to Mekran (334 BC). And after Alexander, the Greco-Bacrian Kingdom (250-125BC) extended right upto Peshawar (Purushpura) giving birth to the Ghandara culture. Thereafter, Demetrius began his invasion of the Mauryan empire and his Indo-Greek Kingdom extended right upto the present day Patna, then called as Pataliputra (1 BC). Greece itself was captured by the Romans in 168 BC to be followed by the Byzantines until Constantinople falls to the Ottomans in 1453 AD. The next 350 years rule by the Ottomans was benign except that they levied taxes and only muslims were allowed to ride horses. The society was left to the head of the Greek Orthodox church with a nominal Turk Sultan. Every fifth son had to join the Janisssaries, the Turkish force. The Ottomans left in 1829 AD leaving behind nan, kabab, halwa and baklawa for our benefit.

We are nearing Chios, from where Athen’s airspace control begins. I tune in the Air Traffic Information Service, a 24-hour broadcast, to get the local weather and runway in use. Athens control, pronounced ‘Athini’ clears us to ’Athini via Kerma - Olida - Kristros - Kea’. The names now have a Greek flavour. Greece is between the waters of the Aegean sea, the Adriatic sea and the Mediterranean. These waters are littered with countless islands of all hues, shapes and sizes. The mainland, shaped like a peninsula, juts out into these waters like the fingers of a hand. It is time to begin the descent. We call Athini. ’Athini. Kalimera. Pakistan 805 Request descent’. At 120 miles out, throttles are pulled back, nose lowered and descent begins at 300 knots. Thumb rule of 3 miles for every 1000 feet works out just fine. Sensing some turbulence, speed is further reduced to 280, best recommended speed for turbulence. I have gone through this drill of Kerma-Olida-Kristos-Kea many times before.

Passing through 16000 feet, we ask for the final cup of coffee. The Mediterranean lies below in all its splendor dotted by the islands which are important to the Greek tourism and economy. The popular being the Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Santorini, Skopelos, Corfu and Egina, which is just half an hour by Ferry from Athens. The Ferries sail at a leisurely pace of 10-15 knots. They have open decks, bars and car holds. As a Ferry sails, fish seem to get attracted to the turbulent water from the propellers resulting in a flock of sea gulls that follow and hover over the Ferry all the way. Hats off to these sailors who make these big mamas dock so gently at 1-2 knots at simple platforms. And then the cars and motor bikes begin to roll out. Each island is picture perfect. Small winding streets and sun-drenched white-washed houses with decorative creepers and foliage. Most restaurants are owned and run by families. Horse-drawn carriages and motor-bikes are available on rent.

Our own island hopping continues from Kristos to Kea. Athini clears us down to 1500 feet for ILS runway 33. We get the speed down to 230 knots and select 15 Flaps. As the Localizer is intercepted, the airplane turns right on to the runway heading. We level off at 1,500 feet and wait to intercept the glide slope. Throttle is pushed up to maintain speed. As the glide slope is intercepted, airplane begins the descent at 600 feet per minute. Wheels are lowered, full Flaps selected; and ’Final Landing Checklist’ is completed. The speed is now steady at 145 Knots. We are flying over beeches and harbors packed with boats and ships. There has been a recent rain and visibility is good. Athens city is on the right, stretching sleepily from the Mediterranean coast right up along the shallows hills and the undulating plains of Greece. There is just a slight 2-3 knots of headwind. We fly over runway threshold, enter the runway and flare out at 30 feet. Then throttles get back to ’Idle’. Airplane rides on a cushion of ground effect. The wheels scrape the earth surface. We are at Athens, Greece.

The first glimpse of the new world is refreshing. Deep V-necks and scanty Bermudas are sprawled all over the floor with beer bottles scattered in the airport lounge. Driving to the hotel, sounds of Greek music of lyra (3-strings) and aulos (flute) blare from the speakers. Road signs are a mix of algebraic symbols and English alphabets. Try reading them and you get a headache. Some Greek alphabets resemble English but are pronounced completely different. Greek nearly became the official language of the US. Black is the favourite colour. Everyone appears to be a smoker. Men have flat bottoms and a slight pouch. Women are fashionable. On the roads, the sculptures of nude young men displaying beauty and grace, made in the honour of Gods, do not have a flattering male configuration. And every name ends with a final ’S’. This city of four millions has electric buses and separate days are reserved for entry into city of odd and even number cars. Syntagma square, the city centre, is the focal point. Every time I visit, local currency Drachma is weaker which I like. The city goes up and down with small hillocks on top of which invariably rests a monastery or a relic of few thousands years old. Well fed healthy looking priests of Greek Orthodox church saunter about and old women in black sit on the steps of the monasteries asking for alms. They expect to be paid if you photograph them.

The Greek mythology may be good for the bed-time stories but it is the Greek philosophers who contributed much to the mankind. And made Greece come out of the dark ages way back in 800 BC by making it the first European civilization. They pondered over questions such as from where does everything come from? What is it really made off? And why we can describe things by a singular mathematics? They rejected the traditional mythological explanations and looked for logic and reason for everything. And thus came Socrates (399 B.C.), an Athenian, an icon of the Western philosophical tradition. He is followed by Plato (347 BC) whose work The Republic gave the first vision of ’an ideal’ state. He is followed by Aristotle (322 BC) who talked about ethics, metaphysics, reason, knowledge and human life. The ancient Greece left behind much in terms of arts, sciences, mathematics and architecture. And in literature, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The famous ‘Greek Ablong’, design of ‘the Acropolis’, is said to have it all – simplicity, beauty and strength. First the Romans, then the Arabs and then the Christian world made full use of the ancient Greek knowledge.

Back to Athens where our stopover is for one week. But I have a social outlet. I had bumped into Kamarados, the architect, at the smoker’s corner in Hotel Roosevelt lobby in New York. He got me into an interesting group of Athenians. Lita, his wife, the human rights lawyer; Kathrina, the dentist; John who wrote on films and TV for local publications and Sofia Koliadi, in travel business. We often get together. We go to watch the ’Kiss of Vampire’. Sofia is my permanent guide to everything Greek and introduces me to the sea food. Sprinkling salt over oyster and as it quivers in pain, slurping it down right from the shell. The only time I see her eyes get misty is when she talks about her divorce from her German husband because she could not conceive.

Not only the sea food, the Greek salad with olives, olives oil and farm fresh ingredients is a far cry from our Punjabi concept of salad of onions and tomatoes. With plenty of time at hand, we prefer long walks for lunch. Going beyond Syntagma and Kolonike, we go upto the flea market and buy some junk never to be used in life. Then step into a restaurant and order ’Half & Half’ which means a pita served with two kababs; and as it is about to finish, the next half comes piping hot. Souvalakia is shishkabab, moussaka is egg plant and sadziki, my all time favourite, is a concoction of yogurt, cucumber, garlic and salt. For the late-nighters, there is a nameless restaurant just a few streets from our Hilton. It opens after 11 at night and serves beef soup which is actually beef curry minus the spices. So if one takes his Tabasco along, one can make a meal out of it. The soup comes with unlimited bread. A more purposeful past time is to take a metro to the Piraeus (port) and take the fast hydrofoils (flying dolphins) or the ferry to an island. Many nearby islands are within a day’s excursion. Or just take the tram to Glyfada for ice cream.

Our week ends in Athens before we know. We are lined up on the runway 33 for Frankfurt. Athini clears us ’Pakistan 805. Clear to take off. Clear to Frankfurto via route as flight plan’. We open throttles and release brakes. The airplane accelerates. As we lift off, we go into a steep climb. Noise abatement procedure is strictly enforced here. The engine noise and vibrations could damage some few thousands year old buildings below. We turn right towards the Adriatic sea and continue our flight remaining on the West coast of Italy. In over an hour, we will be in Frankfurt – the land of the no-nonsense Germans. But that is another story .....

For now, Athini, Herete (Good Bye)