Some more co passenger woes...

On my way to Baroda, i got a window seat at the back of the plane. I smiled. I shall be alone and undisturbed. I shall be able to stretch across three seats and read my book. I shall be able to go to the loo without apologizing to people...

ha ha ha

An old lady in a wheelchair gets the aisle seat. She can't move by herself at all and has to be lifted into the seat. There go any bathroom visits i may have planned. Then comes her son with a million plastic bags. He climbs over her and settles down, carefully arranging his plastic bags around him. I lean away from him and hide in my book.

Before the plane takes off, he opens his tray table and pulls out a large purple thermos. I tell him, he can't have it open during take off. Luckily he listens, cause the thermos is full of steaming hot milky tea. He is very agitated and keeps checking his watch. He needs to drink tea from his thermos before sunset. He's taken a mannat. And the plane is late and the sun is dipping and he can't 'take' anything after it vanishes over the horizon, he explains.

i wonder what he'd do if we were flying westward, and it got light after it was dark!Anyway, so we take off, and within minutes, with the plane still banking sharply, the hot tea is poured into steel glasses and sipped noisily with the appropriate "aaahhh" to follow.

I think of what a friend said to me after my last travel experience "you must have strange co passenger karma" and i giggle into my book.

But that is just the beginning. out come paper plates. and a big steel box filled with soft white idlis. and smaller one with freshly grated coconut chatni. He serves his mother and encourages her to eat, ignoring the glances and smirks from the young airhostesses. He then makes her wash her hands in the glass and empties it into the paper plate. It slops all over his tray table and gets very messy. I squirm in my seat and look away embarrassed...

Bizarre and absurd as the situation seemed, i found myself thinking and hoping that i would be able to serve my parents, family or any loved ones with such care and complete abandon. there was no sense of apology, no embarrassment, no excuses as to why he needed to carry food and plates when the airline serves you anyway.

he knew he needed his mother to be comfortable and thats all that counted.and when i thought of that, it made me feel small that i had giggled.
and proud that i was sitting next to him.

And it made me think for the hundred millionth time, how we just can't and shouldn’t judge people.