30/03/2024
Breakfast Tales
By Storywallah
I love sitting next to the emergency windows on an aircraft. It’s usually 12A which I pay extra for to get my fair share of leg room and for playing the role of the lead in evacuating passengers safely in case of an emergency landing. Imagine the story I can live to tell my grandchildren.
I usually find these seats empty and that adds to the beauty of travelling with no passengers around.
However my return flight from Chandigarh to Pune saw me put up with a family where the dad shut himself off with his ears plugged leaving a mom and son to do their conversations.
After the announcement came to fasten the seat belts, the mother popped a question to her son…. “Did you hear what the Airhostess just said… now can you tell me the spelling of Fasten?”
My ears got alerted by the randomness of her question. The kid meanwhile tried his best to dechiper fasten and could manage fassun as it sounded and that set the stage for the mother to berate him in public accusing him about being ignorant about the silent ‘t’ and warning him with dire consequences that lay ahead in his life if he could getting the simplest of the simplest spellings right. The kid slipped into silence and the mother hurriedly put on her blinders all ready to sleep.
I looked at the kid and felt sorry for him. I held his hand and said, “Don’t worry champ, I too am no good with spellings, but that doesn’t come my way as a storyteller… so ease”
The supposedly asleep mom woke up asking me who I was.
“A published author who doesn’t know the spelling of ‘Conscientious’, can you help?”
Suddenly realising that the game was on her she resisted saying, “I don’t talk to Strangers”
Not to be undone I replied, “Well Mam, I thoroughly acknowledge your indifference in accommodating strangers like me in your Spell Bee challenge but I would still humbly ask you taken on this challenge to spell, receive, deceive, license, enquiry, calendar, occasion, queues tyranny or yacht in one breath”
The lady didn’t know what hit her. I could see her preparing mentally whether or not to engage with me. Thankfully the hostess with my meal intervened breaking the awkward silence.
“Mr Ganesan your complimentary meal, any preference on your choice of beverage?”
“You mean a meal that complements my taste or a meal that comes with your gracious compliments. I would be happy if you could spell it out for me”
The look at the hostess’s face was priceless. Flustered she said, “It’s the meal you booked Mr Ganesan”
“Sure, thank you and may I request you for a Masala Chai, kadak and two sugars.” I replied.
I turned to the kid and said
“Champ English is just a language and not knowledge. You only need to speak or write it in a manner where you connect to people. And for spellings, there always autocorrect”
