Just another day....

Just another one of those days where I had to wake up before the crack of dawn to catch an early morning flight to Delhi and get meetings done. Only this time I switched to Jetlite (or Sahara as it used to be called before Jet Airways took it over) as I'd travelled by it before and found the service and food quite good, and more importantly, plenty of leg room. Furthermore, I got a low fare on this as compared to Jet. The breakfast I looked forward to, though, turned out to be just short of a disaster. So, I was relieved when I reached the office at Gurgaon and a very good friend treated a colleague and me to brunch.

Well, this was a busy day in the Group as the (worldwide) head honcho was visiting and when we got to one of the Group's newly occupied buildings where he'd been, we found security extremely tight - electronically controlled gates, fingerprint scanning and identification (or whatever it's called), et al - not very common here. So I got my work completed successfully and this lovely young lady I'd been only communicating with over the phone until I finally met her (on that day) showed us around the place. A huge cafetaria, a gym, and more than just two cubicles in the restroom. You could virtually live in the office. For a moment I stopped and imagined what that would be like and then the thought intruded, "Nah, wrong city."

The flight back was delayed and tiredness hit as I spent more than two hours at the airport trying to get on with 'The Aeneid' but struggling to keep awake. Too tired to stand and too scared to fall asleep. It was with a sense of relief that I finally boarded the flight for home. Settled down in my aisle seat when Mr. Eager Beaver tries to get past me to his window seat knowing fully well that the narrow gap between my knees and the seat ahead made such a task next to impossible. "Have patience," I said. "I'll get up and you can go in." Once the doors were shut, it was a relief to know that the seat between Mr. Eager Beaver and me was vacant and that I wouldn't have to struggle to get elbow room. But later on, after an awful dinner, this Ms. Restless sitting one row ahead on the other side says to Mr. Eager Beaver, "If you're going to go to sleep, can I take your window seat? You can sit in the middle." "And what," I wanted to ask her, "do you expect to see from the window at this time of the night?" But I held my tongue. Later, I thought she must have just wanted to run away from her own seat because of that Punjabi guy ahead of her. He really was a piece of s%*#. From the time he got on board, he'd been making a nuisance of himself. Pushed the seat as far back as possible and stretched his hands so they hung over the top of the seat from his elbows on. Then he decided to read the newspaper by keeping the seat still reclined but moving to the (front) edge and opening the newspaper wide so it rested on the seat ahead and also on the unfortunate head of its occupant. That gentleman did turn around and protest but Mr. Yucks dealt with the situation by just folding the newspaper in half lengthwise and keeping his hands on both the (side) edges near the top of the newspaper in such a manner that Mr. Unfortunate was now in the unenviable situation of not only having the paper resting on his head but also a couple of undesirable hands. How people can accept such behaviour is beyond me!!

Anyway, Ms. Restless was firmly ensconced in her window seat and Mr. Eager Beaver was sitting next to me wondering how to pass his time now that his sleep had been disturbed. He hit upon this brilliant idea of switching his cell on. I'm not sure what the situation is like in other countries but here, mobile devices are to be switched off before takeoff and can be switched on only when the aircraft has come to a complete halt. Easier to preach than to put into effect considering the number of people we have who pride themselves on their logical thinking. "Logic," said Mr. Eager Beaver when I told him to switch off his cell. "I'm getting no signal; ergo, my keeping my cell on can't interfere with the aircraft's communication system. In any case, I am only supposed to put it off at takeoff and landing." "You're wrong. And tell me that when the plane crashes," I said. "If you have a doubt about it, we can always get the flight attendant to resolve it." He switched off his cell then but apparently had come to a decision that, since he couldn't sleep any more, he may as well pass the time in conversation with his neighbour, namely, yours truly. "So," he says, "are you from Mumbai or from Delhi?" "Mumbai." "And are you a housewife or a professional?" By this time I was starting to get irritated and, apologies to any housewives who might be reading this but, I snapped, "Do I look like a housewife?" "No," he squeaked. And that was that thankfully.

Then I realised that this was my second 'close encounter of the third kind' of the day. Or should that be 'close encounter of the third kind with the weird kind' ? For the morning's flight also had me sitting next to a chap who hadn't switched off his cellphone. It rang a number of times and got me awake and groggily trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. "It can't be this guy," I thought, since the stewardess was standing right there and wasn't saying a thing and then moved away. The phone continued to ring. So I asked him, "Is that your cell?" "Oh, it's ringing? I didn't realise." "Put it off now. Do you not realise you are endangering everyone on board? You're old enough not to have to be told these things." Not even a squeak from this smartass.

So all in all, this made me feel that most people prefer to look the other way or pretend a situation does not exist or even tolerate an uncomfortable situation. Why? To avoid confrontation? Possibly. I'm guilty of doing that at times too if I feel that making a point is just not worth it. Or is it that people don't like to get out of their comfort zones? Or, because they're simply scared and hold others in awe? Or for some other reason?

Whatever the case, in my view, people need to realise that they can't always assume the role of a silent spectator. Sometimes, you need to get involved in a situation and/or tackle it head-on. Because, sometimes, one person or a single act of his can make a world of difference.