The seat swap fiasco on a train

DURING a recent train journey, I had a ringside view of a seat swap drama. A woman boarded the train with her bubbly six-year-old daughter. Upon discovering that they had been allotted a three-seater chair car and noticing that a burly man was occupying the aisle seat, she glanced around. It was clear that her eyes were looking for better seats.

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Just across the aisle, a kind-looking woman — let’s call her Auntyji — sat in the window seat of a two-seater and next to her was a young man, working on his laptop.

“Excuse me,” the mother chirped, looking in the general direction of the three occupants, “Would you mind swapping seats?”

Auntyji said, “Not a problem!” and got up to make the switch, under the impression that she was sharing the three-seater with the mother and daughter. Mr Burly vacated the seat to take Auntyji’s original place.

That’s when she heard the mother ask Mr Burly to stay in his original seat and Mr Laptop to move to the three-seater as well. In a few seconds, the mother-daughter duo claimed the snug two-seater for themselves. Five minutes later, Auntyji realised her strategic error, when she found herself sandwiched between Mr Burly and Mr Laptop.

She couldn’t believe that she had been misled so easily. All three occupants were squished together like pickles in a jar. Every time she wanted to go to the bathroom, she had to do a tightrope walk across splayed knees. I could see her looking around helplessly on her way back, wondering how she could reclaim her former seat. Then, I witnessed a hilarious twist of karma.

A baby behind the mother Mira’s seat (I overheard her mentioning her name to the ticket examiner) was squealing with joy, clapping his hands in delight, at the sight of every passing train zooming past them. It was obvious from her facial expressions that Mira did not enjoy this.

To add to her problems, in the seat in front of Mira’s two-seater, a grandma was sharing a tomato chutney recipe on a video call. She had the lung power of a famous news anchor. She boomed on the phone that the secret of her chutney was adding dry roasted cumin seeds with garlic.

Mira found herself sandwiched between a live cooking show and a baby beatboxing performance. She glanced yearningly at her old seat. She also noticed that Mr Burly had moved to a vacant seat behind — must be a last-minute cancellation!

Auntiji must have been smirking triumphantly now, enjoying Mira’s predicament, because I heard a soft chuckle from that aisle.

Grandma continued, at full volume, “You can also add this to hot rice with a dash of ghee.”

I heard a dramatic sigh, and Mira was surely thinking that she would book a flight next time. The price of being too clever!