Man On The Plane

His silence taught me a crucial lesson

- Mohan Sivanand

He must have had that nice window seat all the way from London. An Indian, he looked under 40, medium height, slim and wore a blazer. When I boarded the Emirates flight in Dubai—it was October 2003—I got an aisle seat next to him. I looked at him and tried to smile as I sat down. But there was a blank, distant look that made me stop mid-smile. One of those, I thought.

Each time I take a flight, I try to chat with a fellow passenger. Most people are responsive when they’re alone at 40,000 feet. Only when it’s one of those few, who barely even nod, do I keep to myself. So flying has helped me get to know perfect strangers. To a journalist, this could be the seed of an unexpected story or simply a chance to hear something different. In any case, with good company up there, time flies too. In recent times I’ve flown seated next to, among others, a young agricultural banker and a financial consultant. I’ve had conversations with a German medical engineer who holds patents on heart transplants, an event manager from Paris, a Mumbai grandmother on vacation.