Making Friends on Planes
Why the ordeal of taking a flight is now an experience I cherish
When I travel by flight, I always keep my fingers crossed for an empty row. But this rarely happens. So, I’ve begun to wish for something else — a friend.
In India, our social lives are based on connections. When we meet someone new, we first survey their city, school or workplace to find some link, any link — as if this is the only way we can connect with another human being. In Bombay’s crowded trains, you will find people who travel in the same compartment at the same time every single day for decades but have never exchanged a word, perhaps simply because they have never got the opportunity to.
Somehow, being on a plane changes this social rigamarole. Over the course of my life, I’ve made more than a dozen friends when travelling on a plane. Trapped in a metal box with no distractions for hours, I’ve ended up telling these strangers more about my life than some people I’ve known for years. Some conversations were mundane — just travel tips or restaurant recommendations. Some were engaging — perhaps an interesting job. And a few were really special.
I made my first friend at the age of 14, on the first flight I took alone. I was travelling back early from Italy after a family holiday and was seated next to another unaccompanied minor, an Italian boy about my age. I’d always imagined life in Italy to be out of a movie — kind of like the Lizzie McGuire Movie- but this boy’s life seemed pretty mundane. Just like me, he hated learning difficult languages at school (Ancient Greek in his case, and Sanskrit in mine). He told me about how he wanted to be a piano player, but his father wanted him to be an accountant. I guess peer pressure and parental expectations are universal, and my limited lens into the Western world was considerably expanded.
About five years ago, I was going to Spain with my friends but was flying solo from Bombay to Barcelona. It was an Air India flight, so of course, it was inexplicably delayed. On this flight, I met a guy who looked and was pretty similar to me. Our conversation was interesting— and so I added him on social media. 5 years since we’ve met, I’ve learnt almost every public detail of this guy’s life and have been seeing his career take a similar trajectory to mine. We had a heart to heart once, and I now see his 11 pm story updates and his job updates. And I somehow don’t want to. I feel like I met him in a time capsule, just like all of the others, and that has been warped now.
Three years ago, I was on my way to Delhi for a wedding, and was seated next to an old couple in their eighties. I had planned to get some studying done on the plane — armed with a book and highlighter— but I didn’t. This old, prickly looking couple was the sweetest. I told them all about my life, my family & friends. In fact, they reminded me a lot about my landlords.
My roommates and I had a really tough time getting work done from our ageing landlords. And as luck would have it, we faced one problem after another — water leakage, a broken geyser and even termites. So all my interactions with my landlords were negative — coming from a place of needing something repaired or replaced. And as old people usually are, my landlords were stuck in their own ways, insisting on thrift before repair — something that annoyed us to no end. But after this flight, I wondered if there was something wrong with my attitude towards them. Maybe the negativity between us was circumstantial and not inevitable.
Last year, I took an agonizingly early flight from Ahmedabad to Bombay. By the time I boarded I was already annoyed and half asleep, and hoping for a quiet flight and a long nap. But what I got was much better.
I was seated next to an elderly couple in their late sixties. They were from a village in Gujarat, about 5 hours from Ahmedabad. The entire village had saved up so they could fulfil their lifelong dream of going to Mecca. It was going to be their first time out of the state, let alone the country.
They had spent their whole lives in rural Gujarat and had only primary education. What could I, a city-bred woman in my twenties, possibly have in common with these people? As it turned out, a lot of things.
Uncle worked in the land revenue department in his village. I spoke to him about land redistribution rights, and he told me about the unfortunate ground reality, something I would have never had a chance to know about. He told me about the massive Hindu-Muslim unity in his village and how frequently there were not just inter-religious marriages, but also inter-religious adoptions.
They were flying for the first time and were diligent about following all the rules. Uncle read out the ‘flying instructions’ to Aunty, struggling with the longer English words, while Aunty listened on with undivided concentration. When the air hostess gave the ‘flight rules’, they stood up with rapt attention just like a child on the first day of school. And Uncle was terrified of flying and asked me to assure him he would be okay. Aunty asked me to take a photo of her, to send back to her sons, so they could see their ‘little mom’ on this ‘big flight’. I told her that the second flight to Mecca would be even bigger, and her eyes shone in anticipation.
They were very supportive of my unconventional career choice and said they would pray for my success at Mecca. They were earnest in their assertion, taking out a small notebook and asking me to write down my mother’s name. It turns out, that’s how prayers are given at the Hajj. We parted as friends.
When I was younger, my mom always hoped to meet someone she knew on a plane. Especially if we’re travelling from Bombay to Ahmedabad. She considered these places her two ‘spheres of influence’ — one where she grew up and one where she moved after she got married. I’d like to think she wanted to believe that the world was a small place, and enjoyed knowing that we were all somehow connected. But I want to believe the opposite. That the world is much more complex and diverse than I can ever know, with an endless array of people to meet.
My ex-boyfriend once said that making friends on planes was a fantasy, an artificial environment that I’d dramatized, and was nothing like real friendships (you can see why he’s my ex). I believed it at the time, but now I’m certain he was wrong.
What does a flight give you, that other social settings don’t? A distraction-free zone, yes — No phone, no internet, no social media. But also, no choice.
On a plane, you’ll get a person free of any connection — and no common friend, no social context, no preconceived notions. You may like them or dislike them at first glance, but you’ve to bear with them for a while. And that’s when you experience the infinite power of human connection. I’ve met people very much like me, and very different from me, and this was often contrary to their external appearance. You get a real chance to form your own opinion about them. And mostly, they turn out okay. As people tend to be.
And that, to me, is more beautiful than any love story.
