Ba-kamal loag; la-jawab survus — By Ejaz Haider (News Editor of The Friday Times)

If certain airlines cannot stop people from standing in the aisles, behaving in a loutish manner and turning the plane into a mosque, perhaps it could spell out the hazards that attend flying on their brochures and/or tickets

I avoid flying certain airlines. The reasons are many but most have to do with passenger behaviour; yes, my fellow Pakistanis. Barring exceptions, and they prove the rule, we are an uncouth people privately as well as in civic terms.

I knew even before I decided to fly to Dubai in an aeroplane overflowing with fellow Pakistanis that I was making a mistake. But given the dates, I did not have an option. The journey to Dubai was tolerable especially because the gent sitting next to me mercifully decided to spare me any conversation and came close to spilling his tea on me only once. But the return opened my wounds from a 1999 flight that I had the misfortune of taking from New York to Lahore. Indeed, it was that experience that had led to the resolve that I wouldn’t ever fly on that airline if I could help it.

The journey was terrible with some children deciding to move up and down the aisle as if they were sauntering in their backyard; damn the seatbelt signs or any other instructions. And it was easy for them since they had their elders to emulate. One of the worst features of any international flight is Pakistani passengers blocking the aisles and chatting away. Spilling of food and drinks is, of course, a standard given. Five minutes after the food is served, some aeroplanes bearing Pakistanis become unbearable.

The less said the better about toilets on a long-haul flight. Not only does everyone want to download everything that he or she had uploaded in the past week or so, the manner in which it is done would do an acrobat suffering from the runs proud. While this was not a long haul, I retreated faster than one can say Jack Robinson after I saw the condition of the toilet that I had the misfortune of trying. Someone had decided to throw a child’s pamper in the pot. This person, and I assume it was a mother, was followed by someone who could obviously not hold his bowel movement for the two-and-half hours that we were up in the air. The sight of his doing — or undoing in this case — and its volume proved that he had been waiting to be aboard a plane before announcing his arrival in the world.

The other toilet being available, since the sign outside said “vacant”, I pushed the door open only to find a beard performing his ablutions. He had not even bothered to lock the door. When I saw him, he had one foot in the basin and was scrubbing it like crazy. How he managed to perform this feat — which was akin to what until then I had thought only the Chinese contortionists could do — could only be explained in spiritual terms. This toilet, too, was unusable because I was not prepared to use it after this bout of spirituality. Water was by then overflowing from the basin and the floor was flooded. I knew the guy would next put his crotch in the basin and I definitely did not want to use the place after his enthusiastic performance. In any case, by then, I did not want to take a leak.

As I bolted from the second toilet, I thought I heard someone say the azaan. As I turned to go back to my seat from the rear end of the plane, I saw another beard saying the azaan and two other beards, excl the one in the toilet, standing up to say collective prayers. They had blocked the way from the toilets to the aisle and I stood there unable to go anywhere. Just then I received a push from someone behind me and realised that the beard performing his ablutions in the toilet was joining the jama’at.

I stood there until they had said their namaz and with spirituality writ large on their faces, or whatever was visible of their faces, they picked up the chaddar they had placed to say the prayers and returned to their seats.

I was fuming. My question to this airline is this: How does it think it can attract travellers, Pakistanis or foreigners, when some of its passengers can make it so inconvenient for others to fly? Incidentally, one of the persons saying the namaz in this fashion was a member of the crew. And if certain airlines cannot stop people from standing in the aisles, behaving in a loutish manner and turning the plane into a mosque, perhaps it could spell out the hazards that attend flying on their brochures and/or tickets. I certainly do not want to witness the expression of such spirituality whether I am on the ground travelling in a bus or at high altitude.

Just the smugness that underscores such piety is sickening. For so long have the decent folks in this country retreated in the face of the beards that we now have to put up with their shenanigans at 36,000 feet above the ground.

As for how we use a bathroom, thinking room for me, about that some other time.

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