Spicy Experience..

The flight back from home to Pune taught me new psychological classification of people… Misplaced Assertive and Counterfeit Assertive

I flew back with spice jet, the low cost airlines. The no frills airline took a step forward in cost cutting and decided not to keep the engines running while on ground to save fuel. The result was that there was no source of cooling, which is not really an option at Jaipur.

The guy sitting across the aisle in same row as me was Mr. MA (Misplaced Assertive). He decided to make enough noise, as the flight attendants surrounded him making excuses like the AC was not working on ground and how it will start working (miraculously)when the plane is in air . While most seated where using the instruction card to fan air, some making up their minds not to fly with the airlines again. Mr. MA liked the attention. If the ground AC system (if there is any thing like that) had a technical flaw or the obvious that the airlines was saving on fuel, blasting the flight attendants was ineffectual in solving the problem.

Next to him was seated Mr. CA (Counterfeit Assertive) who agreed vociferously with Mr. MA whenever he turned to his co-passenger for support, even though it meant chanting the same words again and again. Mr. MA steps out and the pretty air hostess with very apparent north-eastern looks came to the, by now, infamous row 24. She starts the uncanny explanation in a polite tone, this time in Hindi. Mr. CA was pleasantly surprised, actually he was floored. He asked starry eyed “You know Hindi?” Ha ha ha… the lady was totally confused; the burning (or heating) issue was no longer the issue. Mr. CA found the communication of a pretty woman in Hindi more delightful then his discomfort in the aircraft.

By the way, I have utmost respect with people who are assertive and now I know that such variations of the trait are affable too, for the entertainment value.