In Memory of Aie

 

My dear  Aie , Prof.Sunanda Shastri passed away on 15th October 2017. She was a wonderful and compassionate human being and a profound scholar of Sanskrit. I will be updating this post later with details of her life and work.

 

Malaysian Airlines – The worst airline in the world (possibly!)

I recently had the misfortune of travelling on Malaysian airlines on the Auckland- Kaula Lampur- Hyderabad  route. This was the first time I have traveled on Malaysian airlines. Being an avid follower of the situation of Bharatiya’s overseas I am aware of the blatant racist and religious discrimination by Malaysians against the Bharatiyas in Malaysia, specially the under privileged Tamil community.

But it was quite different to experience it first hand on the Auckland- Kaula Lampur route on 16th January. I dont tend to use travel agents but this time lured by cheap tickets  booked with an desi outfit based in Auckland called “Eco Travels”. They did a fine mess by not only not booking forward seats as requested ( for my kids) but also did not send the vegetarian meal request through. This should have foretold me of the turbulent times ahead. One of my friends had advised me of Bharatiyas in New Zealand, “Desiyon se bachke rehena” i.e. beware of Bharatiyas in NZ. My experience with our people in NZ and other foreign locales is a story for another day.

           State of Aircraft Interiors

The flight was grounded at Auckland airport for 3 hours due to a technical snag, while all of us were rotting inside the plane. Lot of the passengers had kids like us and unsurprisingly the kids got restless after a while. The crew was rude and refused to update on what was going on. It would have been easier to let us wait in the airport rather than stew inside the plane.

Another shock was that the kids vegetarian meals we had requested were simply not on their list. One particularly obnoxious female called Khadeeja was in charge of the meals ( heres her pic, circled her in red, seems to be some kind of employee brand ambassador for Malaysian Air).

         The obnoxious air hostess

After much pressing we finally were told that, “Tough, nothing we can do.”

So were our kids expected to go without food for 10 hrs ( Auckland- Kaula Lampur)? All this while the aircraft was still at Auckland airport. For moral support Khadeeja brought along another reptilian looking female, who came primed for a fight. We asked the other female ( let’s call her snake eyes) to request ground staff at Auckland to supply the food. She flat out refused to consider our request. After much argumentation finally they agreed to give some of the staff meals.  This rude behaviour was particularly seen with other Bharatiyas, whereas with whites it was the typical “Yes Sir, Sorry Sir” stuff.

The Islamic aspect came out clearly when anything they wanted to communicate with us, they specifically asked for me (“Where’s your husband?” Not kidding, this was the exact sentence). Funnily enough they asked my wife when I was in the loo taking pics of their rubbish toilets.

          State of toilets part 1

 

Needless to say we missed our connecting flight to Hyderabad. Thankfully in Kaula Lampur arrangements were made for the next day’s stay. The ground staff was good but we soon ran into Malaysian immigration for the transit visa. Typically useless and indifferent government employees. Were doing a favor on everyone by doing their jobs.

State of toilets part 2

Again the boarding of the flight for Hyderabad was a sobering experience. The immigration officials were extremely rude and  thought they could push Bharatiya’s around. While I have never been keen on  visiting Malaysia, you can bet that I will not be a happy tourist to Malaysia.

I took the pics around an hour after take off but the interiors and toilets were in the same state as soon as boarding took place.

This was definitely the worst airline I have ever traveled in. None of the crew ( except a couple) seemed bothered about doing their jobs. One quite a few faces the exasperation of serving customers was very clearly displayed. The aircraft was junky with completely worn out interiors. Check the photo of the bassinet below.

 

This white fellow ” Peter Bellews” is the CEO of this shitty airline. Not sure what exactly he is doing but the airline is crap.

The worst part is that I still need to do the return journey with Malaysian.