There are some sights which you do not forget during travel. There was one such sight when I was on my homebound flight last Saturday. It was an 8.35 AM flight for which I had paid an additional amount to get an aisle seat. When they announced that boarding was complete, I only saw vacant seats all around me!
On the way to the airport I was reading “A Guide to a Good Life.” So I was about to dive into my Kindle. as soon as I was strapped into my seat but somehow I changed my mind and decided to transcribe my coaching notes into a cue card and that activity was making me tick. The plane had started taxiing and it was a clear blue sky. I had already one Americano and one Espresso to make sure that I sat awake for the next hour on the flight. I was arming myself on how to spend my next one hour. I was going through my notes meticulously and I saw this young girl around 6 years old seated diagonally opposite behind me playing some games. After a few minutes, I heard a scream. It was by that girl and I could make out that her phone was no longer with her and her Dad had taken it away from her. She was shouting some words and her mom who was seated next to her in the middle seat was doing her best to calm her down. I am sure every parent would have gone through this experience. I tried to check if she was uttering those words in German or Italian. Two languages I can make out slightly thanks to our European stint from 2005 to 2009. It was all Greek to me. My wife would probably relate to this incident better than me as she has travelled with the girls more than me up in the air. I noticed by now there were a lot of things going on in the row behind me. Dad had shifted her brother to the aisle where she was sitting. She had decided to take solace in the window seat watching the clouds and seeing the world outside. Her grumpy look is still fresh in my mind even after I had reached home. My in-laws and my mother have seen our girls many times with that expression and they all had their instant responses in those situations.
Her Dad was cool. He had by now shifted his seat just opposite to mine and he had all three seats at his disposal. I noticed that he was reading a book. I moved my neck in a forward and backward position to get a glimpse of the book cover. I could only read the first part and it was ” Homo”. By now as usual everything centred around mom. She was in the middle with her son on her left and on her right our heroine. She was not making eye contact with her mother as she had decided to vent her anger and was talking to the clouds. She did not know that Mom came from a different planet. Mom took out a pack of cards and started playing with her son who was looked older than the girl. Mom was making the game interesting with her comments and hugs and that is when the girl turned her attention to the cards. What do you call that expression when one half of your face is angry and the other half amused?
Words sometimes just fail to capture those hybrid facial expressions. While all this was happening, I finished my notes on the cue cards. Our flight was ready to descend and that is when I noticed the unexpected. Dad who was till then very much involved in reading ” Homo Digitalis” kept the book down and asked all of them to look outside. He went on sharing some things looking outside the window. The girl had forgotten what happened and was extending her hand through the side of the seat and touching her Dad. They exchanged some more words which to me appeared as Greek. The family seemed to have got their mojo back and they were all looking forward to enjoying the sightseeing in the city. As soon as I got down I searched for the book. It is by Thierry Geerts who works with Google. I dedicate this blog to children who can shift places and adapt immediately and that was a very important real-life example.
