I want a window seat

So I said "picture abhi baaki hai" (the movie is still on).

If I thought my last trip from Singapore alongside a ghaati traveller was an experience, I hadn't seen anything yet.

Annual Conference, Phuket. Delhi-Bangkok-Phuket and back including an airport transfer on the way back. And guess who's flying with me. A friend and collegue who is going to fly for the first time in his life -- he loves trains.

A week prior to departure, he asked me: "If I have to travel all by myself, what do I have to do".

I was going to tell him, "Grow up". But then refrained and said, "But you aren't travelling alone, so what are you worried about. There are going to be another 103 people apart from me and you who are going for the conference on the same flight. Just relax."

But he would not have no for an answer. "Run me through the procedures at the airport please," he said.

I had no choice, so I explained everything to him - right from how to get the baggage screened on arrival at the airport to his personal security check and boarding. He mixed up the two and said, "But why do I have to go through security. Didn't I do that at the beginning."

"That was the baggage my boy. They wouldn't put you through the X-ray machine, would they," I retorted. Aaaah!

So arrived the day and arrive the hour to check-in. "I want a window seat," he said the moment he reached the counter. The lady obliged and I thought to myself this is going to be one hell of a sight.

Well so we got on to the waiting aircraft through the aero-bridge. "Where's the bus?," he asked me. "No bus dude, you just walk in to the aircraft here."

"Wah, Wah!"

Our man took his seat and soon after the aircraft began to taxi. He was fine till then, expecting that the plane would take speed exactly the way trains do - over a stretch of a few kilometres.

Then the plane reached the end of the runway, revved its engine and the brakes were released. It was like a catapult and our man held on to his seat and to his dear life as the plane moved into the zero to sixty in so many seconds mode. His throat went dry, his tounge wet his lips and he almost clutched at his heart as if it would pop out.

As the plane was airborne, he made his last mistake of looking out of the window. At an angle with the lights becoming smaller, he sunk in to his seat. And that's pretty much how he was in the rest of the flight as turbulence completed his initiation into flying.

I must admit though that he was a vastly improved air traveller by the time we took our fourth flight back home (that is if one was to overlook the fact that he misplaced his departure card before eventually finding it). But the reason for his success was a simple one: NO WINDOW SEAT PLEASE.