9 Kinds of People You Don’t Want As Neighbours in an Aircraft

When you are inside a pressurized metal container, flying 30,000 feet in the air you would ideally want a stress-free environment. If the already cramped leg-space and claustrophobia inducing loos weren’t enough, you have these nine gems to ruin your flight experience, if you happen to sit next to one.

1. The Spread

He’s a spread, but definitely not the smoothest one in the market. This one loves to spread out as large as possible and occupy as much area, even the part he hasn’t paid for, as he can. God be with you if you are sitting at the window and the middle seat is hosting a Spread.

2. The Newly-Married Honeymooning Couple

Talk about kebab mein haddi, only it’s your Kebab and they are the haddis. And it is exactly as annoying as the way it sounds. They will make you feel you are invading private space, even though your seat is legitimately yours. The tinkling of the wedding jewellery, which the bride has adorned in copious amounts, the coo-chi-cooing... you’ll be especially unfortunate if you spot some PDA in your peripheral vision.

3. The Human Snorlax

Yes, you’re absolutely allowed to sleep in the aircraft, but if your neighbour is a Snorlax, you’re bound to be annoyed. This one starts the nap time as soon as he seats himself and after that, his vocabulary consists of only one sound - *snore*. “Could you please move your head to the other side?” *snore*. “Please let me pass.” *snore*. “Would you like some coffee?” *snore* *snore* *snore*

4. The Returning College Stud

He’s been away from parental supervision for the first time for so long. He probably has piercings and grizzly manes of hair and beard. Speaks in a fake accent and is so full of himself that he can barely contain it. Poor you is flooded with stories of college debauchery and self-proclaimed heroism. And oh, did he mention his bike, the one that flies faster than this aircraft?

5. The Wannabe Model

She will always be surrounded by a cloud of perfumes and powders, lest the papparazi strike, you know. She will make you feel underdressed and the same time, relieved that you’re not the one caked in compact and chained in brands. And you’re in for some accented verbal abuse if you happen to accidentally touch her Gucci bag or Prada shoes or whatever.

6. The Frequent Loo User

He will use the loo about ten times in a two-hour flight. He is constantly excusing himself, climbing over you to get to the loo. And just when you think he has finally expunged his bladders and guts, he needs to go again. The washroom sign is forever occupied because of him. You start to wonder why he bothers coming back to his seat at all. Oh, of course, to annoy you!

7. The Luggage Fretter

The Loo User must have learned it from the master, for this one is forever checking the overhead luggage to ensure his hasn’t been stolen. Seriously? Luggage stolen in an aircraft? But no, he is paranoid enough for both of you. He also needs something in the likes of headphones, tablets, tissues, moisturizer and so on from his bag, every five minutes.

8. The Gossip Girls

It’s okay to gossip, we all do it, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Only, it is acceptable in closed quarters. You don’t want to find yourself privy to the scandalous lives of some aunty or the lecherous habits of the old man you’ll never have to meet (thankfully). These chatterboxes also don’t seem to have volume control and will continuously give you mini heart attacks with every peal of shrill laughter.

9. The Curious Aunty

The most annoying aircraft neighbour ever. You’re travelling alone; she’s travelling alone, voila! You’re now the best of friends. She will ask you questions with the authority of a visa interviewer. She might also want to stuff he ghar ka khana down your throat. And then ask for compliments on her cooking. Sorry auntieji, this one’s not for you.

Labour Pains

"Dad, how was I born?"

Years later, when the son had one of his own, he finally understood his father's answer - "We made you that night when we made love instead of having sex."

Listen Up, Girls!

1. Guys hate those who flirt cheaply.
So, that means girls like 'cheap flirting'? Or is this an excuse for weird jealous possessiveness? What IS 'cheap flirting' anyway?

2. Guys do cry.
Breaking news! A guy was spotted CRYING in the streets downtown! I repeat, he was CRYING!

3. It's not just the looks guys fall for, they also like girls who are not so pretty.
Thank you for giving more women body-image issues.

4. If guys care about you, they will overlook your bad traits.
And this is reassuring how? Isn't it better if the person accepts you for your good traits as well as the bad?

5. Guys love it when you smile.
Unless you are the Grinch. Thanks Mr. Obvious.

6. Guys don't like it if you talk about your ex-boyfriends.
And girls LOVE it when guys tell them about all the girls they've slept with.

7. Guys are hesitant to talk to a girl they like.
Because girls are actually Charizards in disguise and will incinerate any guy who comes near. I thought that both girls and guys are shy/awkward in the presence of the person they liked.

8. Guys don't like it when you play hard to get.
So girls, always say yes to anything guys ask you. Seriously, there would be so much lesser rapes/sexual harassment/violence against women if they just said yes to all the stalkers and lechers. Why should it matter whether or not the girl is at all interested.

9.Guys like it when you can stand up for yourself.
Wait, isn't this contradictory to the previous tip? Also, a backbone is an admirable quality in all human beings.

10. Guys want someone to listen to them.
Gee, I didn't EVER think of that.



Why do these tips at all exist? Are they attempts to break the dichotomy between young-adults of the two genders? Aren't they back firing and re-emphasizing the duality itself? Isn't this yet another way of cementing the stereotypes? Isn't it a way of saying that girls will never understand guys (and vice versa) unless they are tabulated and spoon fed into their brains? Isn't it trying to establish heterosexuality as the only acceptable norm?

Most of the points in these so-called tips can be applicable for both men and women. I don't see the reason why these should be split up into "guys want girls to know" and "girls want guys to know" categories. Everyone, irrespective of their genders like a mature, sensible, happy person. Both genders expect the other person to care about them and accept them for who they are. Everyone wants someone to listen to them, without judging. It's weird how gender-stereotypes are reinforced everyday. In the end, we all want the same thing - love.

It's a debatable issue and I too am grappling with possible answers and outcomes. Till we find them, a little sense would really be appreciated.

Dream

I Have a Dream

I'm one of those notorious link-hunters and not very surprisingly, one day I found myself reading about a technique called 'lucid dreaming'. Control your dreaming, it said, by following these easy instructions.

Well, if I could control what I dreamed about, it wouldn't be even half as interesting. 

To a New Beginning

Me and my special someone were having a bit of a dragging whiny fight over many apparent and non-apparent reasons. Now that they have been resolved, I have come up with this project  we do together where he suggests a word each day and I write a post on it, duration not yet known to either of us. I also don't know how this will work out, but I think the idea is pretty interesting; it should provoke my imagination and creativity. It will help us bridge the gap that has formed. So from tomorrow, one post on a new word each day.

Love and...

Here's my take on the mother of all cliches -

Love is like flying a kite. Sometimes you get cut.

Love is like flying a kite. If you catch the right wind, you can soar to heights you never thought you could.

Love is like flying a kite. It's no fun if there's no distance between the kite and the flier.

Love is like flying a kite. If you pull the string too taut, it breaks.

Love is like flying a kite. It doesn't cost much.

Love is like flying a kite. Even if you don't have your own kite, it is still a happy sight.

Love is like flying a kite. You need practice to get it right.

Love is like flying a kite. It can leave you totally breathless.

Independence

I've known a lot of clingy people. Sometimes, it cannot be helped because it's in there very nature. They are like creepers, they cannot survive without a support. There's nothing wrong with asking for help, but it is the whiny clingers that I can't handle.

These clingers will refuse to believe in independence as a good thing. They want you to accompany them everywhere: shopping, travelling, business and even the loo. 

However, it is the ones who can't think for themselves that lack the real independence. These people are so shallow that you probably couldn't drown a fly in them. Very easily influenced, these people are. Also they will take rash choices and make the worst kind of blunders, leaving you and me to get them back into shape. It's kind of difficult to explain this kind of intellectual bondage or superficiality. All these people will care about are clothes and shoes and looks, about how they look, about how to heckle others for attention and about what people think of them. They are incapable of thinking beyond the mundane existence. In fact, I feel they are incapable of any kind of independent thought whatsoever. They cannot even decide what they want to order at a restaurant. 

I really cannot understand this. How can you be like that? How can you not know what you want? How can you not understand what you feel abut a certain issue? I'm sure if you give it enough thought yourself, something will come out of it. May be these people are afraid of thinking alone. They are afraid of the consequences of their independent action, stemming from their independent thoughts. 

Being independent has nothing to do with having a lot of money, power and good looks. It's about the courage to think for yourself. It's about the courage to take your own decisions. It's about making your own choices. It's about the courage to be yourself, honestly, simply, with all your talents and shortcomings and qualities and flaws.

I consider myself independent in this context, do you?

God(dess)

My boyfriend gave me a book as a goodbye gift when I shifted to Hyderabad. It is called My God is a Woman. Honestly the book itself isn't as smart as its title which was the aspect that interested me the most.

Who is God?
Where is God?

Is it god or God?
Is it a 'he' or a 'she'?

As an India and a Hindu by birth, it's difficult for me to grasp the concept of a single masculine god, because for us there isn't one. We have an absolute array of deities (not gods, mind you) both male and female. But this post will not deal with religion per say, as that would be a separate topic altogether.

What I do want to talk about is the concept of GOD, assuming that it a singular entity.

How do you define God? Gamers use phrases like god-of-the-game. We often say an impressionable personality to be god-like. Hotbods become Greek-gods. But who is he/she? What does he/she look like? How old is he/she?

Where does god exist? Is god a concept or a reality? Would he/she continue to exist without the human consciousness? Where is this being, if he/she exists at all? Where do they live? Is it really possible for a single being to create, control and charter the entire universe?

I've always also wondered whether God is male or female. The primary public instinct is to think of this apparently all-powerful being as a man. At least, the newer religions that are primarily monotheistic propagate this viewpoint. I had gone to a Catholic Missionary school all my life. When I was young, I didn't mind the prayer services and attending the masses. Later I started to feel a conflict within me, because, even if my family isn't very religious at all, I had entirely different notions about God and divinity than what we heard in school.

All this questions and queries should suffice to indicate my agnosticism. And these questions stem from a confused childhood. I didn't know what to believe. My parents did not force me to be religious. I'm a non-follower of rituals, idolatry and scriptures. Yet, I'm not entirely decided about God. I don't know if they are real. I don't know what they are. And I like it this way.

But there is something I do know: My god is a woman.

My god is my strength. My god is my will power. My god is my good judgement. My god is my trust. My god is my honesty. My god is my endurance. My god is my gratitude. My god is my generosity. My god is my sense of justice.
No, I haven't met my god yet. I'm in her pursuit.  

Fish

I'm a Bengali. By heredity I love fish. I love eating it. I even love watching it swim around in the glass bowl.

Of all the things I miss from my hometown, fish is right up there on the list. We Bengalis sure know our stuff when it comes to fish. It would probably take me ages to list all the dishes we make with fish - curries, fries, roasts, paturis, ambals, jhols and jhals. We even treat prawns and crabs as fish.

Hilsa, or as we call it, ilish, is one of my favourites. Ma makes an awesome oli-free ilish-bhapa, which is steamed hilsa with mustard and green chilies. The mere thought of the deep aroma of the dish makes my mouth water.

We use up almost everything of a fish - the flesh, the head, the bones - except for the scales and fins, I guess. Murighanta primarily uses the head and bones of a rui or chital (or a similar big fish) and it still remains one of the best delicacies I have ever tasted.

It's kind of sad that I cannot think of fish other than as food. The irony is that one of the things I'm actually scared about happens to be a fish too. Sharks.

Fish can be beautiful too, when I look at them in an aquarium. All multicoloured with intricate designs. I remember I had a fish bowl once. It had two fishes, one black and one orange. Unfortunately we also had a cat, who, god knows how, managed to scoop the orange one out and devour it while we had been away. The other one, I assume, stopped eating the fish-food from the trauma of the whole incident. Also, when I was cleaning the bowl, it took its chance and leaped into the sink and disappeared down the drain. I think it felt the cat would get it too and I won't blame it. I was really sad though.

I also like animated movies about fish - Finding Nemo and Shark Tales always make me smile. And as much as I am scared about sharks, Jaws continued to be a captivating thriller. The music spend a spark dowm my spine.

One of my favourite books is Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

I've never been able to try my hand at fishing, but I'd like to do that some day. It ain't easy, with all the lakes and pond disappearing under buildings. My grandma told me stories of her catching fish in pieces of thin cloth in her village when she was a kid.

So, yes, I'm a fish person. And proud of it.

Co-ordination

Clumsy. Klutz. Uncoordinated. That's me.

Sometimes I have trouble coordinating my left and right feet to go the same way. When I was younger, I frequently tripped over my own feet, without any apparent reason. I have a number of scars on my legs (and some also on my arms) to prove that.

At others, I have trouble coordinating my eyes and hands. My eyes are probably seeing that the object is coming towards me from my right, while my arms, with a mind completely of their own, make a grab either diametrically to the left, or on better occasions a little towards the center. No wonder I didn't make it any organized sports teams.

But I can live with that.

What really bothers me is that at times I cannot seem to coordinate my thoughts and my speech. I know what you're thinking. What a retard, right? Well let me explain briefly that it is not so. I have no problems getting my thoughts down on paper. But you ask me a question and I fumble. It's not that I don't know what to say. Usually I know exactly what I want to say. But my tongue too seems to have a separate brain from my thoughts-brain. And they just don't like each other. Often I get this feeling that even while I'm saying something, out loud that is, my brain has already thought twenty steps ahead, and I lose track of what I am currently saying. Which is definitely weird, I admit.

Talking too needs practice, like catching a ball and dancing to steps. I'm afraid I've never had much of that. Most of my conversations have been ones with myself. I know people who do not like IMs and texting. They would rather have a face to face encounter. I, on the other hand, feel comfortable with written words. Probably that's why I'm also a fast reader.

Not talking often enough might have made me an uncoordinated speaker, but that is also the reason I can write, the little whatever I can.

Best Friend

Whenever I come across posts and comments like "A good friend will ask you to share your lunch, a best friend will have eaten it already", I do wonder if that's what a best friend is all about.

We've all had "best friends" back in school. We'd always stick together, eat lunch together, walk home together, spend hours on the phone talking and giggling nonsensically. All those slumber parties, all those little notes passed in class. Our birthday parties would be incomplete without the best friend. We'd wait till they arrived before cutting the cake and blowing out the candles. They'd understand us like no one else.

As we get older, it starts to change. It would become about secrets. Trust. They'd be the first to know about our crushes. We'd spend hours talking about how cute the crush was and why they didn't like us back. Later when we'd get into relationships, all the boyfriend troubles would be whined about to the best friend. That's how it's always been.

It's sort of sad that I cannot remember having someone like that until a long time. I never left completely understood by another individual. No one seemed to share my interests. Also, I never really felt the need for a so-called best friend.

Yet, I've found some truly valuable friends in the most surprising ways. They have changed the entire definition of "best friends" for me. Now I know it's not about being similar, or even sharing similar interest. It's more about how much you can count on the other person. It's about how much you can be at peace with them. It's about how silences are no longer awkward. How you cannot stay mad at them even if they are annoying your guts out. They've taught me that girls and boys can be friends, and stay at that. They've taught me that age and sex don't matter.

I call them my precious friends.

P.S. This also includes my mother. And also my boyfriend.

Amateur

If I was asked to list things I'm good at, I'd be lost. It's easier to list things I can do. I can certainly do a lot of things, but I don't know if I'm good at any of those.

I write.
I sing.
I paint.
I'm into art and craft.
I can dance if I want to.
I collect stamps.
I read.

But I wouldn't call myself an expert in any of these fields. Maybe I have low self esteem, but it's true. At best, I am an amateur.

I like it though. I like thinking of myself as an amateur rather than an expert, because it keeps my options of improving and learning new things open. I like not being satiated with what I am. This way I can pardon myself more easily, can start again without embarrassment or shame. It wouldn't worry me much if I sucked at something, because I would always know that I would be starting as a novice.

I like being amateur at this.

The Blackbird

Okay, so it was just a crow. But it is worth writing about.

Today I saw a crow outside my hostel room window. And this is significant because there are NO birds in the campus. With the number of trees here, the lack of aviary life is unpleasantly surprising.

I was very excited to see my campus full of large trees. I was sure there would be like a zillion type of birds here. It's appalling that I've seem no, I repeat, NO birds other than some incessantly cooing pigeons. I think it is the lack of birds that makes the campus so eerily quiet once the dusk sets in.

However, there are a lot of butterflies. Apart from the fact that they don't sing, or make any kind of noise at all, their sheer variety almost makes up for the scarcity of the twittering, chirping and yes, sometimes cawing things.

There are two Flame trees right outside my window and if I get up early in the morning, I can be witness to this spectacular, multicoloured swarm of butterflies among the leaves. There are all possible colours imaginable, and many that aren't imaginable. Blue, red, pink, yellow, mauve, bottle green, vermilion and god knows what.

It sure is a pretty sight. But I still miss the birds.

Two Thousand and Five Hundred Miles Away From Home

I’ve spent over a month in the new city, in the new campus, in the new university and things could not have been more different. This might be a good time to confess that I’ve never been away from home for this long before.

Overwhelmed. That is the first feeling I could sift out of an entirely disarrayed mind. How was to fend for myself here?

Then came the familiar feeling of wanting to withdraw into my turtle shell and escape. But turtles are also known for their grit, so I stayed on.

Problems loomed large before me and I felt like an ant before a sand dune. Dear Lord! They assigned me a room on the fifth floor? And there’s no lift? How was I to survive climbing up and down this real-life sand dune for umpteen numbers of times every day for the rest of the semester? Why weren’t there any water dispensers on my floor? Do I really have to go all the way down to second floor to get drinking water? Oh why does my cupboard not close precisely?

For a few days i didn’t know what to eat and where to get it. The food was so alien to my taste buds that a just lived off bread and cheese for a few days. Then there was the indigestion. How my alimentary tract burned!

And I haven’t even started on the language yet. It is astonishing how narrowly regional we are. The only word I understand in Telegu is ‘Amma’. It was scary to think that I will not be able to communicate my needs, and my Hindi abysmal.

I have to do my own laundry, iron my clothes myself, and make breakfast on my own. Apart from that, I have to do the shopping, fixing, cleaning by myself as well. Did I mention the lessons and assignments and deadlines? I guess you would have got the drift by now.

But I’m not going to crib about this. I’m going to put all of it in a box and seal it up with tape, because I’ve begun learning a precious few things that home couldn’t teach me all this while.

Que sera sera.

My Secret Recipe For Grilled Cheese-Salami-Egg Sandwich

You need:
1) Bread
2) Cheese slices
3) Salami
4) Boiled eggs
5) Sandwich-maker/Grille
6) Oregano

You have to:
1) Spread the half of a cheese slice and a half of a salami on the bread.
2) Slice and add boiled eggs on the spread.
3) Cover the spread with another bread.
4) Grill it.
5) Sprinkle oregano for seasoning.

And now for the secret ingredient:
It tastes best on a bad day. Get your closest buddies and find a deserted roof top, preferably dimly lit. You may want to be ravenously churning with hunger, and it would be best if the time is odd, like near midnight or beyond. Finally raise a toast with your toast to the awesomeness life can present you right when things go majorly disarrayed.

Enjoy.

Five years down  the line, you will remember this and smile, instead of wincing at the pain you went through to make the sandwiches: hunger, eateries closing down, running up and down five floors scrambling to assemble the last tit-bits, mosquitoes whizzing above you head like an ominous rain cloud...