For instance, my team was recently asked to send someone to work in India. That’s not our territory. But we were happy to help and one of my colleagues went. It was a week of hard work but he found it rewarding. On his return, he remarked ‘it’s the first time I’ve taken a three-and-a-half hour flight and left the plane in the same country I took off from.’
Obviously, there are other places where it can happen. Russia. China. The United States where, even without including Alaska or Hawaii, you can get even longer flights: for instance, 6 hours 35 minutes from Miami to Seattle.
But in our little countries of Western Europe and the Mediterranean basin, it’s unlikely. Though for a moment I thought it had happened a while back. I’d caught a plane home from Spain. As we landed, a cabin attendant welcomed us ‘to Madrid’.
But then she was Spanish and perhaps anxious to get home, which may have caused the slip. Flying two and a half hours from Madrid only to find ourselves back there would have been a little surprising. Though the French air traffic controllers were doing their best, by indulging in their traditional pastime around major holidays, of going on strike.
That trip wasn’t only significant for its geographical aspects. It was also a fine example of travel bringing me into contact with other people. Two of them, in this instance. On the train home from the airport.
The first was Sandeep. It was 10:00 at night and he’d been working since 8:00 that morning, though he was clearly using the word ‘work’ in a loose sense. He was obviously, as he later confirmed, in a well-lubricated state. Indeed, he was carrying a wine bottle only half full, and a couple of plastic glasses, one of which contained part of the other half.
‘Are you taking this train to Bedford?’ he asked me.
It struck me as an odd formulation of the question. But I had a straightforward answer, so I gave it.
‘No,’ I said, ‘to Luton.’
He had a brief moment of anxiety before asking the obvious follow-up.
‘But does the train go to Bedford?’
‘I hope so,’ I told him helpfully, ‘or I’m on the wrong train.’
That answer seemed to satisfy him because he sank onto a chair across the aisle from me.
‘Thank God,’ he said, ‘I’m a bit pissed and I couldn’t work out which train I needed to take. Glass of wine?’
I managed to resist the temptation of warm white wine out of a plastic glass and we got into conversation. Which meant that he talked to me – or at me – while I nodded at appropriate points. I even tried to say the odd word to encourage him, but he needed no encouragement and talked right through any remarks of mine.
The second person was Ryan. At first he walked up and down the carriage several times, I assume to see if he could find any congenial company, and eventually decided that there was nothing better on offer than us.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘this sounds like a good on-going conversation.’
Clearly, he had the same notion as Sandeep of what constituted a conversation.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he went on, sitting down without waiting for a response, and picking up Sandeep’s wine bottle which he examined critically. He didn’t seem to share my reticence over absorbing its contents, so went on without pausing to another question, ‘mind if I have a drop of your wine?’
Sandeep clearly felt he was not being allowed to play his role of host as fully as he liked, so rather than sitting back and letting Ryan help himself, he poured him a generous plastic glass full. A clearly hospitable man, I decided, since he had presumably only brought the second plastic glass to entertain such guests as Ryan.
‘Good Lord! Not that much!’ said Ryan, but he raised his glass to our health, accompanying the gesture with a beaming smile, so I suspect he wasn’t as unhappy about the quantity as his words suggested.
‘I’m a bit pissed,’ he added, rather unnecessarily.
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| Travel companions: Ryan (left) and Sandeep |
After Ryan left, Sandeep decided to tell me a little about himself. He’d spent five years as a software developer on contracts, earning £580 a day.
‘Work it out,’ he said.
I had. He’d been making nearly £12,000 a month. As much in two months as the median annual income of British employees. But then he’d decided that he’d had enough of the existence and had taken a job as an employee again, cutting his earnings by two-thirds. He’d recently been promoted to lead a team, and was finding the stress difficult to handle. Could it be the team that had taken him drinking, what with Christmas so close? And the stress that had him hitting the bottle so hard?
But there was an issue that was bothering me. He was clearly of Indian extraction and drinking. Since I’m a complete stranger to tact, I asked him, ‘You’re not a Muslim, are you?’
‘No,’ he said, and then with a little pride, ‘I’m a Sikh.’
He explained that he’d used his years on high earnings to buy property.
‘Three houses and an off-licence,’ he told me. ‘The off-licence is for my Dad. He’s retired but he’s a shopkeeper at heart – he was one for years and he hates not having a shop to look after. So now he runs the offie.’
And the other three houses? Rented, naturally. It’s something that quite a few members of the Indian community seem to do: get into property quickly. A smart move. I don’t know what may happen post-Brexit, but housing does seem to be an excellent investment, one that holds its value far better than most.
‘My Dad owns nineteen houses,’ Sandeep added. Leaving me wondering why I hadn’t bought a couple more when I’d had a chance. Too late now, alas.
Interesting, anyway. As curious as long flights that leave you in the same country. A conversation that opened my eyes to other ways of doing things, and therefore broadened my mind.
Besides, he was likeable, Sandeep. Fun to be with. I’ll raise a glass to him over the holidays. One actually made of glass. And the white wine in it will be chilled.
The memory of an entertaining encounter will make it taste all the better.
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