Dandelion

Gods have been pretty unhelpful to me. Well, I cannot blame them either, for why must they come to the aid of an atheist, a sceptical fellow? So always my opportunistic supplications and gentle enquiries if Gods would care to help were not heeded. 

But, yet I did not lose hope while boarding a train, a long distance bus or a plane, and then while waiting for a passenger to occupy the adjacent seat. 

So the journeys were always braved with a miserable co- passenger next to me in the form of a sweat reeking middle aged woman, or a grumpy old man, or an insipid middle aged stranger who probably thought that my sitting next to him was a nuisance. I would then weather the journey with an equally grumpy face, and often mostly feigning sleep or fighting with a book.

Once the Gods smiled upon me or even erred in their resolution thence far. I saw a very attractive woman in the attire of a flight stewardess joining me in the queue at the arrival hall immigration clearance in New Delhi airport. She was wearing a Lufthansa cabin crew uniform. She was extremely beautiful, tall, wheat complexioned and elegant that it was quite difficult to often not glance admiringly at her. The jet lag and sleepy eyelids after the long haul flight was overcome in no time. I discreetly (I thought) watched her throwing occasional glances through the corner of my eye. But alas, once outside the terminal, I lost her and I made my way to check in for the night at a hotel. 

The next morning on the flight to Coimbatore, I was seated in the seat 1-C, which was an aisle seat.  I preferred aisle seats, as they are comfortable - one can move about at will! As usual I tried to implore the Gods, gently reminding them there were two vacant seats next to me and perhaps they can let by indifferences towards them as simply matter of delinquency and dispense some favour? For once , as I mentioned they seemed to have relented and a very beautiful  young woman walked in and smiled before she asked in sweet lark voice if I would mind her occupying the seat 1-A? I was bewildered and like someone somnambulating, took her bag from her and kept in the overhead loft before making way for her to be seated. The three hour journey down south saw me in close conversation with her. It was she who let the ball rolling by opening herself. She told me that she was an airhostess with Lufthansa. I told her I did meet a girl who was on the flight from Amsterdam and she was a passenger but in the Lufthansa attire. She laughed and told me it was she who was the one. I had failed to recognise her in jeans and tee!

As it turned out she was the daughter of a business man from Kothagiri and she was going home to her father’s Tea estate on a short vacation. When we alighted at Coimbatore, I suggested that she meet my spouse, who would be there to pick me. The elation of the fantasy flight was rather blunted a wee bit when I sensed that my spouse was not too keen to appreciate my new found jet-setting friendship and rather indifferent and noncommittal when the girl invited us to her estate. I let the piece of paper on which I noted her telephone number fly out like a dandelion through the car window while we drove home.

It was once on a KLM flight out of Delhi to Amsterdam. With the flying miles I acquired, I could upgrade to the Business class. As I took my seat in the two abreast business class, I wondered who would be joining me in the seat next. Thence upon came a lady who looked most likely to be in her mid-forties, dressed in elegant sari and a pashmina shawl lazily thrown on her shoulder. She was to be my co- passenger. She looked sophisticated and classy. And indeed she was. She was an undersecretary in the ministry of commerce and she was going to the European parliament in Brussels for a meeting. We spoke about issues in Textiles that were vital to India and she narrated how vested lobbies were derailing every effort by the government; how the EU and the US saw with some apprehension the rise of the BRIC nations.

We chatted late into the night and I noticed that she was quite a person with liberal indulgence in matters of exquisite spirits and she may have washed down more wine and champagne than I.  When she knew that I was from Kerala, she told me that she was often in Kerala. I asked her if she hailed from there. She did not reply to that, but her knowledge of even some cities and their roads gave me a feeling that she was a Keralite, but was rather not keen to neither admit to me nor reveal her surname which would have told more. I felt some reticence in her.

It was sometime well into the flight when I woke up to find that someone was holding tight around my arms and cosy up against me. Through sleepy eyes I got startled a bit as it was this lady who had coiled up in her seat and leaned on my shoulders, her head resting on my chest, with her arms holding around mine, blankets thrown over our torsos and limbs. She was in deep sleep. My senses were awakened and to me the startling transformed to awkwardness and later to amusement. I let her sleep undisturbed. 

When the stewardess woke me up for the early mor