The Aeroplane Tale Biting my lips,i looked at the lady expectantly. "nopes..." she said a trifle sadly,while glaring at the screen, "none are left" Almost immediately the ticket attendant at the airport looked up from the screen.She beamed...had a excited look in her eyes. This is it,i thot...i finally have a window seat... "Next..." she cried out,as she handed me a non-window ticket to delhi. I was travelling to delhi for my summer internship and my fancy of a window seat was,much to my chagrin,verily unsatisfied.With the same doggedness as Sampras attempting to garner the French Open trophy,i have refused to accept the sad fact that i am doomed to always get a non-window seat. It was thus,a disgruntled mr.kumar that boarded the aircraft. In all the movies,novels et al,always a nymphet sits beside the hero. I of course was no hero...but have always hoped on every flight for Ms.kismet to smile on me.needless to say..no nymphet sat next to me. For the record it was a middle aged man...a horizontally unchallenged individual,more than a trifle fat for the politically incorrect. He was given to munching a lot of nuts and chips,which made a very musical sound, something like "chowmp..choomp". It had a pleasant alliterative ring to it. he also punctuated his rhythmic munching with burping sounds that had a trumpetish tinge to it. He was in short, a very musical chappie...leaving me wondering why i was always left to face the vagaries of fate...left to face the music so to speak. while i was thus musing darkly on why chips werent banned from the world,a beautiful apparition flitted by....and sat just in front of me.I was left open-mouthed...indeed my mouth must have been very wide open,coz the altruist next to me,in a spirit of camaraderie,stuffed a handful of his munchy chips in my mouth,perhaps in the noble belief that any open mouth musnt be left to the bare elements so to speak,and must be protected with suitable entities like chips et al. Noble though his intentions indeed were,they resulted in me coughing and choking, which alarmed the philanthropist next to me a great deal.And also the lady in front.She immediately sprang from her seat and announced that she was a medical student and she would be glad to help. I immediately recovered from the lethal attack on my mouth,and assured the lady that i was fine and thanked her for her concern.Before i could steer the conversation to more fruitful areas,she turned and sat back in her seat which left my incorrigible mouth open again. But this time,my very unreasonable behaviour had hurt the gourmand's altruistic feelings to the root..and this time he just gave a sad look at my open mouth and did not venture to stuff it with his chips. My scheming mind was on overdrive.i HAD to occupy the window seat next to the lady in front,thereby hitting two birds with one stone so to speak. I looked at the aforementioned seat...nobody.good.Hopefully,nobody would come to that seat and i would gleefully appropriate that seat,i would then...my honey-laden musings were darkly interrupted by the announcement to fasten seat belts. Great.Nobody was coming next to her. "Umm...can i sit at that window seat,since nobody is coming there" i asked the air hostess. "Ya sure",she replied and handed me,horror of horrors,a pack of chips and a chocolate. It was a testament to my poise and control that i landed up in that seat in a leisurely nanosecond.Also that i briefly,for another nanosecond,actually thought of opening that packet of chips. But then we kumars think limpidly.A brief microsecond later saw the chips in the hands of mr.munchy-man.I at least owed that much to that guy.It is not everyone who has such a high musical inclination. He gave brief morose look at my open mouth and took the packet. Meanwhile i settled in my seat,and was thanking my stars that saw me get a window seat AND get seated next to a nymphet.perhaps my guardian angel wasnt so languid after all. We kumars believe in poise and suaveness.Which is why,i with all the poise i could muster,said a "hi" to the lady next to me.Any connoiseur of "hi"s would have the cockles of his heart warmed at my "hi".It was not an ordinary "hi" as "hi"s generally go.It had that dash of "hiya",even a "chow". All in all,it had got the lady pretty impressed.It is not everyday,after all, that you meet such a laudable pro at "hi"s "hi" she replied back demurely. "A friend of mine was to have come.It was his seat..",she said indicating my seat. "But he didnt turn up...." she said flatly.There was a trace of pique in her voice I waited for more info,but it was not forthcoming.she simply closed her eyes and laid back. I was a trifle curious.After all,if you had a friend coming with you,and he hasnt come,you dont be so nonchalant.Perhaps it was a last minute decision,and the ticket might not have been cancelled at all.Which explained why the ticket attendant didnt find any window tickets. Any further contemplations were rudely broken with her mellifluous voice. "Do you like flying",she asked. "i dont mind bungee jumping if its with nymphets like you",i wanted to say. My open mouth though played truant and out came an umimpressing "i dont mind it, its fast and convenient" "if you were in my position you wouldnt think so" she said a trace of bitterness in her voice. Again with a wide open mouth that would have given my gourmand friend a heart-ache,i waited for more info to come forth.Again she just closed her eyes and laid back.I pursed my lips..This wont do,i thot. "And why so..",i bravely ventured. she opened her eyes slowly.Looked askance at me...laughed a gurgling laugh and closed her eyes again. "You dont want to know.." she said. It was a kumar in deep contemplation that laid back and closed his eyes. I was thinking on the best topic to break the ice,so to speak. "Hands up everybody" the bellow waked me up rudely. I looked at the seat beside me. Empty. I looked in front.The lady was brandishing a swank Uzi submachine gun and looked pretty menacing. She winked at me. "Come here kid", she said. It is one thing to have a submachine thrust in your face,but another thing altogether to have a beautiful lady call you a kid.The forbearest of men would have taken umbrage.Calling a virile youth a kid tantamounts to kidding around with his deepest feelings. I pointed that out to her. Very unreasonably,she just waved her Uzi in reply. "Just come here kid", she said irately. We kumars are masters of expedience.We perceive the situations where there is a considerable danger to person and limb.It was with a gargantuan will power that i swallowed my piqueness, and went near the cockpit door where she was standing. "You shall tie all the men with this rope",she said, handing me a long twine. "how can you be sure that i have tied them properly...." i asked "Coz i shall check all the bonds one by one and even if one is loose,i can tell you one more thing that shall be let loose",she said severely,indicating her Uzi menacingly."let loose on you",she added for additional clarity. Twine in hand i set forth on my job,when she jabbed me in my ribs. "Pronto" she said. "Pronto","Proooontooooo"...the voice seemed to be getting far away. It was a veritable punch in my ribs that saw me wake up with a start. The lady was staring at me with her eyebrows raised. "We have arrived..." she declared. I rubbed my eyes and stifled a yawn. Darn...i get a window seat next to a veritable nymphet and i squander it away by sleeping all the way.I coudnt believe myself. As i got down from the aircraft,i couldnt help glancing again at Ms.nymph She was glancing furtively around.And patting her waist-band Perhaps she was a terrorist after all.And the absence of her "friend" botched her plans. Perhaps she could still blow away the airport or something.With mounting paranoia,i made haste in exiting the airport. i had forgotten about the incident...until a week later when i was perusing the newspapers.. "Model arrested for alleged underground links" ,screamed the headlines It was Ms.Nymph.