Plane Truths II

Continuing my series of what happens to me in relation to airplanes, I have a gem to share.
The wrestle of the arm rest can be quite irritating especially when both adversaries want it equally badly. The war of course is lost right at the beginning if one of the adversaries has an arm that's armrest size!

My Chennai to Mumbai flight was spent in half a seat, with me folded up around an imaginary vertical axis, actually measuring kilometers to Mumbai and counting down time. I thought I was lucky to get a window seat, my luck ended the moment the middle seat next to me and half of my seat got occupied by a gargantuan who was impersonating a human being. Arm rest was the first casualty, I gave it up in the first 5 secs; my midriff also was being molested constantly by the elbow of the beast. Am not slightly built either but I know how to mark my territory out and contain my body within. Land grabbing was being rendered a new meaning by my sizable neigbour and I felt a bit like Papua New Guinea being attacked by the US. As luck would have it, the flight was full, had to be, for my ample neighbour had five such clones sitting in various parts of the aircraft. One more of the lot and we would have never taken off…So I had no alternate seats to occupy….
Very soon, the passengers sitting in the row ahead decided to add their bit to it and they reclined their seats. To give you a background, everyone who’s about 5ft 8” and above and travels regularly by Jet will develop acute arthritis of the knees in five years, simply because of reclining seats in front which crush your bones. Today was special- I had my bones crushed alright and my neighbour simply expanded sideways to occupy a good part of my body. So there I was legs wrapped inwards to avoid to seat crush and body sucked in to avoid ogre’s hug. Hathayoga at its best.

I tried to adopt a philosophical outlook and say that some things are destined. Atleast he’s not being pesky and irritating otherwise. Thought too soon, as a clear snore rendered its presence loud and clear. He was now exhaling in my direction, I could have installed windmills there and made some money out of wind energy…Alternately I thought I could offer him the window seat and take the middle one myself so that he could just lean on the right window…I decided against it cos there was a good chance that his weight pulled the flight the other way and we ended up in Bhopal instead of Mumbai….

The airline crew couldn’t find me another seat…in protest and in asphyxia I refused to partake any meal. My neighbour did, he had a ‘territory’ to feed you see. The meal seemed to have energized him no end . He discovered that there’s a view outside the plane and he had to take a closer look. I was in between, or so I thought, but he discounted my presence for a mere eyesore. He lunged across time and again, to check if we were flying the same direction as we had been 5 minutes back.

Thankfully Chennai Mumbai is hour and a half . Dazed and bruised I was the last to get off the flight, accompanied by pitiful glances from the crew. One of them handed me a bag of goodies as a mix of apology and stock clearance. The bag looked familiar and pleasant. As I opened it fully, the words”Air Sickness Bag” loomed large in front of me. I was sick alright but didn’t need goodies in THAT bag to tell me that. Now I know why some passengers kept giving me those dirty looks. They were probably wondering why the hell was I carrying my puke home!

Post Script” Can’t such huge people qualify as cargo. I would have gladly exchanged him for a HUGE suitcase atleast it wouldn’t poke me in the ribs and stay in place!