The seat by the window

---

“… I will prefer an aisle seat please..” is my standard script at the check-in counter at any airport. And it has been so for the past… ummmm.. 10,…12 … I really do not remember honestly. Well, it’s been since long, to keep it simple. The reason was the advent of Low Cost Airlines.

In the foray to fit in as many rows of seats technically possible, they perhaps forget to realize that a person with even marginally longer legs will not feel too great to get their knee caps buffed by the seat in front for the entire tenure of the flight. The aisle seat offers a lucrative option of stretching your legs out on the aisle for almost all through the flight.

But this time around I changed my preference.

It was September and I reached the Leh airport at about 5:30 in the morning. It was pretty dark and cold then. There were innumerable people grouped in bunches of various size, gender and attire strewn all over airport. I didn’t have much to worry while standing in the endless queue at the check-in counter of Go Air since I was comfortably an hour and a half before the flight time. Started to play a guessing game on how many minutes would the next passenger at the counter take to finish. I was just about getting adept at the game when it was my turn at the counter. Lucky me!!

I was very conscious of the change in my script this time and almost sounded alien to my own ears when I heard myself say “ I will prefer a window seat please”. I was not sure if any would be left for me to grab after wading through the long queue. Lucky me, again!! I got one.

The one hour wait at the airport passed away quickly enough while I went through all the pictures I had taken in the trip… those 2,300 pictures were closest to my heart at that point time (well, they still are).

I was not too happy to see that there was an elderly Ladakhi lady sitting on my seat cozily with her husband. At first, I thought I should just let it go. I almost did, till the aircraft started taxing towards the runway. But suddenly the pang of leaving Ladakh overtook all conscience and made me rethink. I had planned and dreamt of going there for 5 years. And finally when I could make it there, it was for just 5 days. (No I am not making it up for the alliteration) Those last few sights of the landscape meant a lot.

While they did not protest to the change in the sitting plan, they did not co-operate either. They barely displaced themselves and their luggage that they kept on the floor in front of them, by a seat each and allowed me in. I broke though the language barrier, crossed over the two seats and climbed over their luggage to reach my seat by the window and all this while balancing myself in the moving vehicle.



I reached just in time. Barely within the next 5 minutes, we taken off. A few seconds is all I got to peep outside the window and manage one single shot before we wrapped ourselves in a thick blanket of clouds.

By now, you must be wondering was all this trouble and troubling two elderly persons really worth it? Well, I never regretted my act. Here is it for you to decide for yourself…

---