That a seat on an airplane is dreadfully uncomfortable isn’t what this post is about.

I was recently on a Bangalore-Delhi flight, and I had picked my favourite seat on the aircraft. This comes not only with the privilege of being able to afford frequent air travel, but also with that of being able to pay for a premium seat.

A few days before that, I was booking a seat on an interstate bus in Karnataka (and I was duly warned of the risk that accompanies travelling as a “general lady”— refer to the photo above).

There is little delight in finding that the seat next to you is occupied by a male co-passenger. Not because their ‘male-ness’ does me any harm—it does not, more often than not. But, whenever this is the case (finding a man on the seat beside you), which it is more often than not, you almost never consider using the common armrest that separates your seat from theirs. You make yourself so small and shrink back into your seat to obliterate any scope for physical contact. The business of making yourself small and invisible is one that most women are acquainted with, but it really comes down to an art when you practice it while seated in the economy class of an airplane.

It isn’t a case of every now and then, but a case of every single time, that you end up occupying only half the seat that you have paid full price for. And, just like that, each time I step out of the home, I find that I live only half the life that I could have lived fully.

As I was seated on that plane, I couldn’t help but notice the abandon with which my fellow passenger stretched his legs and laid claim to the armrest. And that, my friends, is the real discomfort of airplane travel.