Incident on Indigo

Recently I was travelling to Lucknow for one of my projects. On the flight, I encountered an incident that I think is amusing enough for me to recount.

To start from the start, I have a 6 am flight, which means I leave home at 3.30 am, which means I get up at 3 am. So I reach the airport on time and snake my way to the check-in counter. The lady there asks me, “do you want window or aisle?” “Window is fine,” I curtly say, as if making a concession. “Sorry sir, window is not available,” she says matter-of-factly. In my mind my jaw drops. “Aisle is fine,” I quickly add in panic, feeling like we used to when the school bell rang at the end of the day and we had to run to get a seat, any seat on the school bus. In Ranchi, we called it “jagah lootna.” Proceedings could get intense and ugly. But I digress.

So I enter the aeroplane. Bawling babies in the embrace of hassled mothers, pointing instructions to hassled husbands. I take my seat on the aisle. Mine is next to the emergency exit, so the kind airhostess comes and explains to me the meaning of presence of mind, trying to keep a straight face all the while.

I sit down. The plane takes off. The gentleman sitting next to me is trying to go back to sleep. Except that the 5-year-old child sitting behind wouldn’t let him. She (I saw earrings) bangs and pulls at his seat. It’s 6.30 am. He turns around and glares at the mother. She tries to correct the child. But clearly, the child is made of sterner stuff. This goes on. Temporary truce pockmarked by hyperactivity at the rear. The gentleman is perhaps exhausted and hopes the child will relent. She gains in confidence. I think to myself, this is one audacious child. His patience is wearing thin. Sitting next to him I can feel the change in his self.

At some unexpected moment, the dam bursts. He gets up and decides to deal with it like a man. “Sleep be damned, this one is for dignity,” I think he must be thinking. His darting eyes seek out the father of the child.

Gentleman next to me: (Controlling his emotions) “Is this your child?” A touch of pathos underlying his query.

Father of the child: (A balding burly man, with two buttons open on his shirt revealing chest hair and a thick gold necklace. The red teeka on his forehead makes him look more menacing than his tone suggests. All this taken together implicitly justifies the behaviour of the child) “Yes?”

GNTM: “Can you please ask him not to do it?”

FOTC: “I am, but she is a child you know. We are trying, but you need to give us some time.” [It’s clear whose side he is on.]

GNTM: “From the time I have boarded the flight she is disturbing… “

FOTC: (Cutting him mid-way) “But she’s a child, you need to be patient. We are trying to convince her… but you need to understand she is a child.”

Post this, the mother tries with renewed vigour to enforce some discipline, which I don’t think worked out that well. If anything, it agitated her some more. I tried to control my laughter.

At the time of landing, the kind air-hostess announced that all window shades be open.

There was only one window shade that was not.