Chris Saul's Blog

Wednesday November 29, 2006

I'll just parachute down and get you one, sir

Some conversations on my flights are hilarious.

From Dubai to Athens -

Passenger: Excuse me, I ordered a vegetarian meal.

Crew: This is a vegetarian meal sir. It's clearly labelled here and you can see there are no meat products in it.

P: But it has mushrooms in it.

C: Mushrooms are definitely vegetables, sir. No question there.

P: Oh. Are there any other choices? I ordered a vegetarian meal.

C: This is a vegetarian meal sir, as you ordered. We don't have any other varieties of vegetarian meal on board.

P: I didn't have this last time. I'm worried about the mushrooms in it. Can you fetch me a different version?

C: There aren't any other versions on the plane sir, so I can't get you anything, I'm very sorry.

P: It just that I wanted vegetarian and this has mushrooms in it.

And on, and on, and on...

Tuhaanuu angrezi aandii hai?

Last week, out of the blue, three people started speaking Punjabi to me.

First off, the security guard at the Dubai Autodrome gave me directions on where to park in Punjabi. The guy digging the ditch that was blocking the entrance to our car park one evening explained his predicament in Punjabi. Finally, the laundry man delivering my clothes asked me, in Punjabi, if I had any washing for him to take back with him.

Anyone who's seen my photos on Flickr will know that my general appearance doesn't instantly suggest Punjabi might be a tongue I'm familiar with. I think the reason for assuming that I might understand what was being said to me was Mrs Saul's presence on each occasion. Presumably everyone guessed that if I had a wife who looked like she might well be a Punjabi speaker I might speak it myself.

Fortunately, thanks to the fact that Mrs Saul does speak Punjabi, I was able to find the car park, ignore the promise that the ditch would be covered in 5 minutes and tell the laundry man, in English, that I had no laundry for him.

These situations did get me thinking that I should learn a few phrases so that I can chat with people here in what amounts in certain stituations to be a far more common language than Arabic. Why should they always make the effort? As well as that, I'd love to be able to talk a little to Mrs Saul's grandmother in her mother tongue.