Cheap thrills

This is me, Bins. “She” is still fighting with her virus! It is amazing, this germ. Very powerful. Anyway. I want to write about our trip from Boston to New Delhi. I won’t name the airline but maybe you can guess? Normally, for me, air travel is a very stylish form of torture. The seats are too small and the ticket price too high. The food is served in aluminum foil and smells of unwashed underwear. I hate every minute of it but what can I do? We cannot afford to pay for the normal-size seats and real plates.

This time, however, when we are checking in at Boston, the nice girl at the counter says, “Oh, look! You have been upgraded.” Not to Bizzy Class or Fussy Class but to Prim: Premier Economy. These are my names, by the way. The airline has some funny titles like “Senator” and whatnot but I prefer my names.

The upgrade is only from Frankfurt to Delhi. So from BOS to FRA it’s the standard torture followed by an eight-hour stopover. Eight hours!! At the end of that time I am so dying of boredom that I agree to eat the burnt leather with Fevicol topping that hides under the name of “pizza” in the waiting lounge café. The girl behind the counter has a fountain of orange hair on her head and a permanent-grumpy look. Perhaps from eating too much Fevicol pizza? Finally it is time to board the flight. By the time all the wheelchairs, the screaming babies, the Bizzies and Fussies have rushed onto the plane there are only five or six ordinary passengers like us left to board.

I have been thinking all along that the upgrade will just be two more inches of space and maybe a cloth napkin but no! It is fantastic. We have a pair of broad seats, with a proper armrest in between. Inside the armrest is the foldaway table for meals. There’s a little courtesy pouch with a toothbrush and toothpaste and warm socks. A footrest that actually works. Plenty of space in the overhead storage.

And the air hostess is an actual human being! When she says, “Sir, would you like some wine with your meal?” I feel like a human being too. It is a very nice feeling. Instead of one meal and one hot-vomit snack, we have two full meals. The cutlery is made of steel, not plastic. There is some very friendly pasta and a recognisable chicken sitting inside a perfectly white ceramic dish. The cheese sauce is, well, a little Fevicol-y, but the chocolate truffle dessert is superb. Even “She” is looking happy while sneezing and coughing between bites.

The movie I watch is about taking salmon from Scotland to Yemen. It is a crazy story but I like it anyway because I am so comfortable. Maybe for the first time in my grown-up life, I am having fun while flying through the air in a small metal tube with 300 snoring strangers around me! And you know why? Because it’s FREE! Yes, my friends, I have a small and petty brain: for me, the best luxury, like sunshine and fresh air, is free.

Manjula Padmanabhan , author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

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