I got you this time with the title, I can sense. The couple of apparently superfluous 'e's have had the desired effect of foxing most people, my finely honed writer's instinct tells me. E-flying, readers can pretend to relate to, even though the full import of what it is would remain in the realms of guess-work. Images of some glitzy video game showing mutant characters in unlikely shapes and colours flying around would flash in the minds of the general populace, desperately trying to make an educated conjecture. But Eee-flying? Let me demystify the title without increasing anxiety levels further. In some southern Indian languages, Eee refers to the common fly, that indefatigable six-legged insect which literally tends to fly in the face of people and all types of deterrents. And there begins this tale.
The Bombay-Bangalore flight was reasonably full and I was feeling immensely pleased with myself for having successfully experimented with a new offer from the airline (meant only for hard-boiled suckers) to pay a small premium and `reserve' the adjacent seat also, which would probably have been empty anyway. So, in short, I had adroitly managed to get two seats for myself and my overall world-view was in a smugness-induced lavender colour. Just as I was heartily endorsing Browning's view that `all was well with the world and God was in his heaven' and buckling the seat belt, I had a rather funny feeling that someone was staring at me - you get that when the hair on your nape bristles a bit?? I was on a window-seat, so at best someone could have had a partial shot at my profile, but then that would have required a significantly strained neck and some gymnastic effort many would consider perfectly unjustified by the mug in question. But when I looked around, as was usually the case, not a soul seemed the least interested in me or what I was doing. But the vexatious feeling persisted as I turned to the window for diversion and I found the offending presence instantly. This eee was sitting on the window-sill, about one foot from the tip of my nose, at a fortyfive degree angle (that would explain why I thought I was being stared at). It sported a carefully cultivated air of arrogant nonchalance that could only be born of enduring proximity to humans and a healthy mix of contempt and pity for their ways. It should be pretty tough even for a physiognomist to interpret the inscrutable face of an eee due to a general lack of visibility of the visage - especially the eyes and this task was further complicated by the fact that one didn't know whether it was a he-eee or a she-eee. There is no need to be derisive about this poignant fact because my own gut feeling, though unsupported by any admissible research on the subject and my past discomfiture in similar circumstances have taught me that if it is a she-eee, in the aforementioned mix of contempt and pity, contempt prevails overwhelmingly by a hefty margin. And that is more disconcerting, as everyone knows.
As we were preparing to take off, eee got busy and flew away as if it had been assigned specific pre-flight chores, as an essential cog in the wheel of the cabin service team. Some fifteen minutes into the flight, it returned to its perch and seemed to examine me critically for a few seconds before gingerly moving to the empty adjacent seat; but only after circling me twice and making a 360 degree review, as any HR specialist worth an increment would recommend. When I exercised the option for an empty seat next to me, I did wonder what I would do if some belligerent and uncouth specimen insisted on occupying that space since the seat was empty and there was nothing to declare that it was an integral part of my domain for the duration of the flight. Beseeching the air hostess for help in evacuation was the only path open to me. But now, I summoned all my intelligence and good judgement to play to refrain from complaining about an eee to the authorities, lest I was hand-cuffed and evicted as a potential troublemaker in flight. I bought a cuppa masala tea from the hostess and went about mixing the brew, deliberately ignoring eee. As I deftly balanced the cup in my hand, preparatory to attaching the lip for the first sip of my masala tea, I heard a husky voice asking whether I flew a lot.
Whether my body jumped first or I choked first, there is no way of firmly establishing since there is an acute lack of scientifically recorded evidence of cause and effect in this context. But there was no ambiguity about what happened to my hot tea! I certainly spilled half the cup on my somewhat white shirt (put it down to the exceptionally hard water of Bangalore, which mulishly refuses to let pristine white to be retained on any fabric after three washes), leaving a nice big brown patch on the exterior and a red scald mark on the chest, as if my heart had decided to involuntarily ooze masala tea. The source of the voice was not my immediate concern because I had a nightmarish vision of having to explain to my dear wife `how I managed to get such a large stain on my shirt THIS TIME'! I must confess I have a tragic character flaw in my historically proven inability to drink or eat (my extremely prejudiced wife would desire inclusion of `even hold', but I humbly and vehemently beg to differ) in/on anything that is likely to move. That is, without significantly damaging the immediate environment as well as my own clothing. Consequently I was barred for life from eating or drinking on short-haul flights and other assorted modes of transport by an edict proclaimed by you know who! I had stupidly violated that, tempted by a lowly cup of tea. If I told her an eee's husky voice was actually responsible for the tragic outcome, I would be inviting the `gone off the rocker' certification without further ado. As I was dolefully contemplating the dire strait I was in, the helpful husky voice continued,`Use the tissue you are holding and water from the bottle to clean up'. The owner of the voice had evidently concluded - based on reflexes displayed thus far - that such an imbecile required all the help he could get!
While my already bruised ego took another painful salvo in the form of that piece of unsolicited advice as well as its origin, I was smart enough to understand that the advice was solid nevertheless and deserved following. After five minutes of abulations, my chest and shirt felt and looked pointedly worse in that order, than before and I promptly suspended my scrubbing activities. All the while, eee seemed to be welling up with empathy and was providing some morale-boosting two liners to me, with the sole objective of shifting my attention away from the stained shirt. In the process, we discussed what was uppermost on my mind - the eventful welcome that awaited me at home for violating a sacred oath. Then eee told me a bit about itself and how it happened to be on the flight. What followed was a series of spell-binding revelations from eee and I almost wished the flight would get diverted to Colombo or some such place, thereby enabling the conversation to last longer!
Unfortunately, my blogometer is somewhat angrily indicating to me that I have used up my quota of words for this one without saying much, as is customary. I will have to defer the details of my heart-to-heart with eee to the next one! So, until then! Stay tuned for Eee-Flying II !
