An airplane is not the best place to have a panic attack.

There I was, staring out the window at the tiny little specs of land below me, noting how when you really look at things from a distance, they seem so insignificant. As is typical for anyone who is sitting on a flight looking out the window, I started reflecting on my life. And if you wonder why all these businessmen who travel around the world first-class are always so depressed, it’s because reflecting on your life on a daily basis has the side-effect of making you sad– loves that could have been, friendships that never lasted, career mistakes that you wish you’d made before Google was invented and there was no permanent proof of them.

But I, on the contrary, was happy that day.

I thought about how, despite the various twists and turns that I hadn’t quite anticipated, I was pretty proud of who I’d become and liked the ways things had turned out. I’d always harbored the dream of flying solo– at least for a little while. Here I was, literally and figuratively, flying solo. No business partner. No life partner. Just me. I liked that.

I started thinking about all the things I once thought I would do with my writing and my career. I had promised myself that someday, I would write about things that mattered to me. I would be paid to write about these things that mattered to me. I would travel for this work. And I would be paid for this travel. Check, check, check, check.

So it seems a bit unfair that when I was finally feeling so chuffed with myself, the plane would encounter turbulence and send me into a state of hysteria.

I’m borderline claustrophobic (I have a history of begging drivers to stop buses in the middle of the road, and clutching people I’m with when I’m on an elevator) and I inherit travel sickness from my mother, so being on a plane is somewhere on the top of my list of things-I-don’t-want-to-experience, though I’ve lived through it successfully several times (face your fears and all that). When the plane bumped about, it triggered who-knows-what in my head, and I freaked.

I started hyperventilating, I clutched the seat in front of me, and I began shaking. Thankfully, there was no one sitting next to me, and I was able to panic somewhat privately.

After an eternity, the flight landed in Ahmedabad. And I was able to go to my hotel, where I remained passed out till early next morning, which is when I had a train to catch to Surat.

**

Surat, despite being the second largest city in the state of Gujarat, does not have an airport. Instead, you can catch a train from the capital Ahmedabad. The journey usually takes four hours.

I arrived in Surat around 1 p.m. and since I didn’t already have a reservation (I’m more an on-the-fly kinda gal), I walked into one of the nicer hotels near the railway station. Now here’s a little cultural lesson for you: if you’re a single Indian woman who has the audacity to travel alone, you’re unwanted. Simple. I was turned down by five hotels because while on the face of it, I was told that there were no rooms available, hushed whispers informed me that “people don’t usually give out rooms to single women here.”

Hotel No. 6 turned out to be my refuge for the next three days. “Uh, we don’t have rooms,” the owner said at first. I was beginning to get desperate. “No rooms at all?” I asked in my sweetest voice, while I fumed on the inside. “I’m traveling through here, and I would really appreciate it if you might have something.” When he still didn’t seem to budge, I fell back on the technique that’s known to work very well.

“I’m a journalist, and I’m here for work.”
“Oh, I think we have one room available.”

The fear of media attention gets them every time.

We eventually got to talking, and he told me quite frankly that the only reason he was giving me a room was that I was a journalist, and he didn’t want to be sparred in the papers the next day. They didn’t typically give out rooms to women.
“Women either bring men or kill themselves.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, you know, why else would a woman come alone? Either she’s going to bring a man for um, you know, or she’s looking for a place to commit suicide.”
Right. Every single woman looking for a hotel room is either a whore or a loony. Got it!

Eventually, after proving my identity in various ways (business card, portfolio, phone numbers of the family, you name it!) and convincing the owner that I was neither with a man, nor suicidal, I finally got myself a room.

The next day, I walked downstairs in order to get to work, and I saw him at the reception again. “See, still alive!” I quipped. My joke did not go down well. Like sane single women, humor is scarce in that area. “Don’t even joke about such things!” the owner scolded me. “What if someone thinks you’re serious?” In the evening, I ran into him again, and we talked for a while. And even though he was trying very hard to dislike me, he was weakening. The dude actually enjoyed my company. “You’re a bit like my daughter,” he said. “Always laughing about some silly thing or the other.”

I didn’t have anything scheduled till late in the afternoon the next day, so I was surprised when I received a call at 11 a.m. It was the owner. “Didn’t see you this morning, so just checking to see if you’re alive,” he joked.

“Hah, good to see you finally found your sense of humor,” I laughed.

By the time I left, I had earned myself a heavy discount, and a promise that he would consider giving rooms to single women on a “case-to-case basis.”

**

On the train back to Ahmedabad, I was in a compartment with a woman and her five-year-old daughter. I was so exhausted, I fell asleep almost immediately. When I woke up, there was a little head lying on my lap! I looked up at the mother who shrugged. “What can I say? She likes you,” she said. I laughed and stroked the child’s head as she slept peacefully for the next few hours.

I walked out of the train station with a numb leg and a new friend.