2008/09/14

India 8-8-10

It was a downpour when I arrived in Mumbai on Sunday. The flight was a strange experience. I was in and out napping and kept waking up to some new event. To lay it out, I was sat in the emergency row (which had awesome leg room) facing the the stewardess' seats and when I awoke the first time I found the stewardess sitting across from me huddling over like a psych patient with a slight rock. Her head was resting in her hands, elbows on her knees, obiously sick from the turbulence that woke me up. Another cabin member was helping her so I drifted off again only to awake once again to the same stewardess, bright-eyed and smiling offering me an orange juice, and not as part of the regular drink service.
When I awoke the third time, the gentleman who had been sitting one seat over from me in the aisle seat was in a heated and intense conversation with a crew member and when the conversation ended, he scooted to the middle seat next to me. He remained there literally on the edge of his seat with no visible intentions of leaving. I could not fathom why he had moved. Not that it bothered me him sitting next to me, but I just couldn't understand why. It was like trying to free an imprisoned food particle between the teeth with one's tongue. Futile. I even tried to sneek a look at his seat from behind his back. But no evidence of a reason for the shuffle existed. No wet spots, no broken seat belt and no one in the seat behind to prevent reclining his original chair.
I decided to let it be. There was some reason, and the fact that it was beyond me forced me to give it up. But I as I came to finally accept the fact that I would be sharing adjacent seats for the remaining duration of the flight, I was hit by a curve ball. After the two of us had finished our sandwiches, he got up to use the toilet. When he returned, he sat down back in his assigned seat. I couldn't believe it. The questions flooded through my head and all the food particle was back. Why, why, why.... I'm a pretty amiable person, but I don't think he moved next to me to chat considering he never said a word and I tried my best to sleep in order to drown out the nagging curiosity about this musical chairs act.
I never did find out what all the fuss was about, and like the tootsie roll pops comercial goes, "The world may never know."

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