Travel Rant

I used to love traveling. A lot. I thought it gave me the time I needed to catch up on my thoughts as well as reading my novels. Plus it provided the perfect escape from the monotony and stresses of college and home. I used to absolutely love traveling......until I started noticing a certain pattern. Either someone would already be in my seat and I'd have to haggle for it, or there'd be an utterly noisy baby in close proximity to me or there's be an extremely fat woman sitting next to me, squashing me half to death.

As far as the haggling for the seat on the train went, the popular response would be, "You're thin na? Why don't you adjust?" And the perpetrator would smugly move an inch and expect me to squeeze my skinny ass onto the seat. At first I used to comply but then I thought, why the hell should I? I have a reserved ticket and you don't. So you either get completely off the seat or I’m calling the ticket conductor.

I think the same principal applied to the obese people I always land up sitting next to. "You're thin na? Adjust." Ya well, I’m tired of adjusting, and I’m tired of being squashed up against the window and I’m tired of having the wind knocked out of me every time you shift in your seat. Besides, if you're going to overflow into other people's seats, you might as well buy an extra ticket! I know I sound rude but I’ve seriously had it with people who think it’s their sole right to sit on you just because they can.

And don't even get me started on kids yelling their lungs out somewhere in my vicinity during journeys. Seriously, these howling kids seem to follow me where ever I go. Whether it’s in a movie theatre or a bus or a train or even in a nice serene park, these little bawling cretins seems to be everywhere. Don't get me wrong. As a child psychologist, I have extreme tolerance for young children and most of my patients are generally well-behaved. And I do love children. It's just the uncontrollable ones that are the problem. But then again, if the children are uncontrollable, I think the parents are to blame.

Like a couple of days ago, I was traveling back to Bangalore in an Air Deccan flight. As we all know, Air Deccan has very small aircrafts that seat only 50 passengers and have only one flight attendant. I of course, had the misfortune of sitting just behind a French couple with three young children. The girl who was at the window was no trouble at all. She kept gawking at the passing clouds and was totally oblivious to everything around her. Her little brother was in the centre seat and the mother was in the aisle. Every time the little boy so much as burped, the mother would lean over and spank him. When he began to howl, she'd yell even louder for him to shut up. See, this is where punishing the parents would come in handy. I'm sure if someone had told the badly-behaving mother to shut up, the kids would have behaved themselves as well.

Oh heck, I’m just ranting. I believe that if you can't control your kids, don't bring them out in public. They only land up being a nuisance to others as well as you. And for the love of God, don't bloody bring your ill-behaved kids into confined spaces such as aircrafts and trains where their screams are just amplified even more. Who knows, maybe one of these days I just might turn around and smack you first and then throw you and your noisy brats over board.

Just for the heck of it.

As for the "Swalpa adjust madi" syndrome that other people seem to have, I've solved that problem by putting on weight. Now I'd probably have to ask them to adjust. Muahahaaa.