Funny Flight story

Traveling is fun. You get to meet different people, learn about new culture etc. All my international travel till now to US or UK was by Lufthansa airlines. The Lufthansa crowd is generally well educated, but it gives me nightmares, as I have to keep repeating the same old stuff like the purpose of the visit, which technology I am working on etc. This time for a change, I booked the tickets in emirates airways, which goes to UK via Dubai.

On boarding the emirates flight I was relieved to see that the crowd is of working class. Thankfully there would be no discussions on project, work etc. The guy who sat next to me (Lets name him X), looked uneducated and I guessed he should be traveling to Dubai to do some labor job.

The flight was for 4 hrs. Normally flight journeys are boring. I do sleep for most of the time except when the hostess wakes me up for having food. Emirates flight was not an exception. As I woke up from deep sleep I was not in a mood to eat immediately. So I was watching X have his food. And this made the flight journey really interesting.

The flight menu had Croissants, fruits and South Indian breakfast items (idli sambar etc). X started his meal with the fruits. He looked at me as if to ask something, then he decided not to. He took out the fruits using his hand and swallowed it at one go. Not bad. After all, when we are really hungry we swallow everything. Then he tried to open the cover in which the croissants were kept. It was sealed at one end and opened at the other. Before I cud tell him that it could be taken out of the open end, he took out the fork, tore the sealed portion of the cover and ate the Croissants. Then he turned towards me, saw the croissants cover in my hand, and told me that I could use the fork to tear the cover. I thanked him for the wonderful idea and kept watching him as he continued having his breakfast.

Once he finished the croissants, he opened the creamer that is kept for adding it to the coffee and gulped it at one go. And his eyes conveyed a sense of achievement. Well it is. I used to wonder whether someone would use the creamer in the coffee, because I feel, it tastes really horrible. But this guy proved me wrong.

The spread was too big for him to handle. The next thing his radar eyes looked at was the after mint. I thought his brain would give him signals to have the after mint at the end. No!!!. It did the other way. He opened the after mint and swallowed it immediately as if I was going to ask a portion of it. Now its for him to enter his familiar turf i.e idli sambar stuff. Once he finished the idlis he had a look at the butter and the jam. He could not understand the purpose for which it was included in the menu. And we have a tendency not to waste anything which comes for free. Butter and jam suffered the same fate as that of fruits.

Now, it was tea time. As soon as the black tea was served, he added sugar in it. I was wondering whether he would at least use the spoon now, for stirring the contents. To my surprise he opened the cover of the toothpick, used it to stir the contents and gulped it. Then he threw the toothpick. Once he had his food he started listening to Arabic songs (with full sound....even I could listen to it) and slept.

Quite often we worry what others (and the society) would think about our actions. But this guy did not bother about anything. Sometimes, not being educated has its own advantages. Don’t you think so?