travel India style

Desi Yatra
Sitting cooped up in a plane for 22 hours—it does something to the soul. You tend to bond –with the person sitting next to you. Not that these friendships last—Usually after exchanging cell numbers, visiting cards and promising “to catch up later,” everyone just goes their separate ways.
Sometimes people are useful. Like the man sitting next to me en route Chennai- Abu Dhabhi- Chicago- Cedar Rapids. He watched my luggage, he gave me his snacks, he prayed all the way that we would not fall into the desert or the ocean. He actually prayed for both of us. It went “All merciful God let the two of us be saved if this plane crashes.”
That was when it struck me—I was seated near the window. Unless I too was saved he would have a tough time!
When the food came around he complained “this is not vegetarian.” Despite assurances from the hostess he refused to eat.
This did not prevent him from slipping the cutlery (steel) into his cloth bag. There was a fork knife and spoon. How do you explain that --
There was no need to steal the cutlery. His son had been in the USA for 6 years—he probably had his own. The airlines are very strict about (deadly weapons). I did not think they were going to look kindly on forks and knives!
My earphones were not working. I considered returning them but the hostess was too far away. I started to search in my bag for my personal phones.
“Here take mine,” he said “I don’t watch movie”.
I accepted with gratitude.
When the flight was over the airhostess came around collecting the earphones. I gave his phones back to him and returned mine.
“Oh” he said to the airhostess, “I did not get one.” After she was safely gone, he stuffed the crappy two pin airline earphones into his voluminous cloth bag.
Finally as we were waiting for immigration he said , “I have brought some Alphonso mangoes for my son. They are very expensive.”
“But,” I said, “we just signed a declaration that we have no vegetables or fruits with us!”
“Arre” he said “adjust karega”.
At that point, in a very cowardly fashion I distanced myself from him. Fortunately the officer directed me to a different line.
The last I saw of him, he was being led off by two uniformed officials with his cloth bag into a separate room.
Wonder if he ever did make it to his son’s house!
Gita Mathai