Our flight to Delhi was about to depart in a few minutes. The air-hostesses were positioning themselves at an equal distance in the aisle to give the pre-flight safety instructions. An air hostess was standing right next to our seats, while the few passengers in the aisle scurried back to their seats. If you’ve traveled in economy class just like us, you must know that the aisle is narrow and that two people cannot move in opposite directions at the same time; one must make way for another. A passenger wished to move towards the seats ahead and the air hostess obliged. But, there was something unnatural about the way she did it and it took me a while to understand why.
Once our flight was mid-air, I decided to talk to my sister about what I’d just witnessed. She was going through one of the catalogs after having read the newspaper front to back.
“Didi, I will tell you something. You just tell me whether you feel I’m looking too much into it, okay?”
Her eyebrows furrowed at the odd request. “Okay… as you say.”
“The air hostess was standing facing the passengers parallel to our seats. When the man wanted to go ahead, she stood perpendicular to the seats on our next row such that her back was visible to me. I noticed something very weird.
“And that was..?”
“If I were her I would keep the hands on the upper portion of the seat to steady myself or towards my sides. So would you, right?”
“Yeah, I would. “
“But no, not her. She kept her hand on her bottom, her palms facing outwards. Like this..” I explained along with a gesture to make her understand better.
She was scratching her head and wondering where I was going with this. But I knew I has captured her attention enough.
“Now I will tell you one more Incident. And then I will tell you where I’m going with this.”
“Go ahead..”
“I had gone to Goa 6 months back in December, with my friends, remember? We took a flight to Panajim and Rohit was sitting ahead with Rohan while Swara, Sheela and I were sitting behind. Rohit’s mother had packed theplas for us, which we gobbled down within the first 15 minutes of the flight. But after that, Rohit was feeling very thirsty so he called the flight attendant a couple of times to ask for water. And so did we. But the last time he asked for water, the attendant seemed visibly infuriated to the extent that she landed up dropping water on his shirt.”
“But that’s her job!”
“Exactly! That’s what I thought. That it’s her job and why is she getting angry? But here’s something else, we also called for water a couple of times and we had felt no inkling of her being annoyed. She was quite sweet in fact.”
“That’s really weird.”
“I think I know why she did that? I think it was because she thought he just wanted to harass her. Maybe a lot of men do that. And that’s why I feel the air hostess on our flight kept her hands like that. Because she may have experienced men trying to grope her while she is on her job. It’s a defensive gesture!”
She raised her eyebrows and then knit them together. After a while, she said, “You know, I think perhaps you’re right. Wait, look at this.” She removed the newspaper she had just finished reading, “Look at this article.” I read the title aloud. “Drunk Bhojpuri actor Nirahua misbehaves with air-hostess”. I looked at her and we shared a knowing look.
I didn’t feel the need to read that article further. After a few moments, I broke the silence. “What we read is what gets reported. Imagine the number of such instances which aren’t, I’m wondering how often they must have been asked to let go of it and not create a ruckus; just so that the flight isn’t disturbed or there is no delay.”
“I read the article just an hour back, but here I’m seeing a change in someone’s behavior and suddenly I feel a lot more than what I did after reading the article.”
“It’s different isn’t it? Reading about it and then witnessing something in person. To realize that it’s a reality. Just makes the truth sink in further.”
We went back to doing whatever we were doing previously, our minds still hung on to our conversation.
We reached our destination, and as we made our way outside we could see the air hostess stationed at the aircraft’s gate.
“Thank you for choosing our Airways. Hope you had a great flight.”
“Thank you.”, I responded with a smile hoping those words would convey a lot more.
