Ps and Qs

Air India has been in the news for all the wrong reasons last couple of days, the premier Airline of the country back with the Tatas committed a faux pas by forgetting their own Ps and Qs by letting the passengers literally peeing and getting away with it. Appalling behaviour by the passengers who too forgot their Ps and Qs, crass, crude and abominable.. well we will run out of adjectives and we will be forced to resort to expletives ignoring our own Ps and Qs. The poor lady who was at the receiving end of the ‘pee’ did not have a ‘c(l)ue’ about the stream she was subjected to. Interestingly one of the theories regarding the origin of this phrase traces it to the pints and quarts of tipple. Obviously the pee man had gone overboard, forgotten the measures of the pints and quarts and probably consumed gallons.  

Air India was at the receiving end of the troll army with memes galore, some examples, “Earlier Air India pissed you off, now you are “pissed on”!” Another one wished the passengers that they  “have a pissful flight”. One air stewardess was announcing that “In case of increased pressure in the bladders, diapers would automatically drop down!”

Bladders are tricky and can give way rather unexpectedly as discovered by the elderly, enlarged prostrate being the culprit. But with the advent of adult diapers, the oldies are spared the embarrassment. Our mothers have probably had to suffer getting wet in the middle of the nights tending to us as infants when we did not have any control over any of our activities. I am reminded of another episode which too occurred in a public transport in another era, the episode dates back to 1978, when we were on our way back from Allahabad to Indore. It was peak summers, my father and me were to take the train back to Indore. Needless to say reservations in the train were not available and hence we were forced to travel unreserved in the General compartment. The fact that General compartments are overcrowded is an understatement, that evening, we were reduced to the state of sardines in the can, jam packed, actual cattle class. We climbed onto the space where luggage is to be stowed, incidentally there are no top berths in these coaches. The coach was full of tribals from Eastern Madhya Pradesh probably returning to their villages having finished their labour contracts. A Babaji was also stuck like us, but unfortunately he could not climb onto any of the upper echelons and had to brave it out amongst them. Sometime in the wee hours of the night, we heard the sage blow up as one of the kids perched on top had decided to let go. The kid was not to blame as there was literally no space for him to go to the lavatory as that too was fully occupied. The sage was thus given an abhishekam. 

Air travel was not supposed to be risky business though you were airborne, thousands of miles above the sea level, having placed your trust in the hands of expert pilots to steer you through safely. The risks to life have been substituted by grave concern for the dignity. The culprit was not in the cattle class but ensconced in the Business Class and obviously a valued Frequent Flyer, no wonder he was treated with kid gloves. Had he been travelling Economy he would probably have been escorted to the P(prison) without any Q(queue)!!