Mum’s the Word

Peter,

Hilarious article! On my last PIA flight I accidentally discovered the benefits of a smoker`s area despite being a non-smoker myself. You see this flight was flying over the Himalayas and I wanted a better view than the aisle seat I had in non-smoking. So I found an empty window seat in the smoking section.

Aside from the fabulous Wing-less view of the mountains, I noticed another benefit - there are no children in the smoking section. So I spent the next 17 hours in peace and quiet. Only side effect was the second hand smoke, but hey as long as they aren`t smoking marijuana I won`t be getting high off of it. :)

The flight on the way over was another story, I was seated in a packed plane beside a 25 year old woman with 3 kids under 5. In the entire overnight flight, either I had to constantly answer a barrage of questions from the 4 year old, or I was babysitting a 10 month old who didn`t like me, while the mom went to the washroom. In front of me sat a young couple with their first child that was 3 months old (that they didn`t know what to do with) and cried the entire trip.

I think my relatives should appreciate more all the pain and hardship I go through to visit them! :)

Another solution I would propose would be to make double-decker jets with the bottom floor being the family zone and the top for those 12 and up. The family zone could even have a playland in it to keep little kids occupied during the flight. For families with whiny babies, put them in the baby zone (a partition of the family zone) that is enclosed by a wall of soundproof glass/or plastic. Thus when the door to the baby zone closes all sounds cease to be heard anywhere else...

Regards,

Fozia

it has got to be the MOST annoying thing to sit in front of children on a plane...especially a PIA plane. Going to pakistan is worse since the plane is laden with new born children wailing at the top of their lungs to let us know of their status as American citizens. even better are the ones that can talk and love the trays attached to the seat in front of them...also, the incessant ``aunty yeh dekhain, aunty yeh meri choti behen hai, aunty chichi karni hai`` can get to those looking for comfort on planes. hear hear mr. damji...im all for a kid free zone on planes. why not discrimanate against them..send them to the back...the cigarette smokers have to go so why not these little big annoyances too? :)

rizvi

My name is Jessica. I am eight years old. I am deeply offended by this article. To equate children with cigarettes is insulting. Perhaps the writer forgot that he too used to be a child. Nobody forces you to smoke but everybody has to be a child. Beside, we will pay for the social security and pension for people like you when they will get old.

Now next time, pick someone of your size.

Jessica (eight yrs).

No doubt this article will set off a flurry of travel horror stories, so here`s my contribution:

This author obviously has never experienced the joys of parenthood(snicker). When he has to bear the cost of raising and transporting his kids, he will cry about how the discount is not nearly enough! Children, or I should specify, the annoying an inconvenient aspects to their character, are a necessary evil, unlike smoking or cell phones(?). I really can`t see how the ``no jeans`` or the air pollution points raised relate directly to travelling with children; it is like comparing apples to watermelons. Big, heavy, inconvenient, annoying, snot-covered, chained-to-your-ankle watermelons.

Believe me, if I could have travelled with my 2 1/2 year old folded up and turned off in my briefcase along side my motorola, and stashed by 9-month old in my breast pocket with my pack of Salems, believe me I would have. Air travel, as cramped and horrid as it is, has not been experienced to its fullest until your flight is delayed 6 hours for fog in Lahore(IN THE PLANE), 4 hours in Amsterdam for mechanical trouble (STAY IN YOUR SEATS, PLEASE) and 6 hours in JFK, waiting for Toronto to lift its cerfew (timing was off due to the first 2 delays). However, when you factor in the 2 year olds chronic diarrhea and lingering ear infection, coupled with the infant`s severe bronchial infection (all marvelous parting gifts on behalf of the motherland), include shortages of diapers, wipes, and formula, overflow the toilets, and the experience is pretty much complete. Please, Please, PLEASE have mercy and show kindness to these poor unfortunate wretches, the parents who travel with children!!

SOMEDAY YOU WILL BE ONE OF US!!! TO DENY IS IN VAIN!!! TO RESIST IS FUTILE!!! YOU WILL JOIN OUR RANKS SOMEDAY, YOUR DOOM IS INEVETIBLE!!!!

Separate area for children? Now there`s an idea...but, do I have to stay with `em?

Thanks for something light and trival!

Why fly PIA?

If you want to avoid those little pesky devils for a better part of a day, why not fly another airline?

Being a Pakistani does not mean you have suffer mind piercing cries for the sake of patriotism!

Here is a suggestion: pay a little more and fly an airline that values customer service and its operating principle is to cater to its customers and not to operate a zoo at 30,000 above sea level.

FedEx should look in to some method of sending the little terrors through the mail. It is only natural though, given that our national past time is to produce kids that PIA flights would be so horrible. There is a wave of terror when you are sitting in your seat with a few empty seats next to you and some Osama-bin-Laden-with-kids makes his way down towards you. Those are the most tense moments, when you are praying that the seats next will not end up being occupied with some little brat, with a snotty nose and insomnia! But by far the worst is when you can`t see the little XXXX but you sure can hear it. Crying its little head off for no other reason other than because it can. Drives you crazy trying to figure out where the little basttard is. Not that you can do anything. I say we put them in the cargo bins overhead till they are too big to fit.

Faraz

This article reminded me of the esasy by Jonathan Swift in which he suggests that children be eaten as a solution to famine. This one`s not as striking, though. Still, don`t you think that sitting next to a pack of screaming children on a flight from Karachi to New York is the best advertisement for birth control?

With three young kids ``Aap Hamare Zakm par
namak kyoon chirak rahe hain?``
(I can only appreciate my wife more day by day).
Love my kids but there are times when one wants
to take a PIA flight alone

It just reminded me of my return flight from Lahore to Washington DC of last month. I asked on the PIA counter to give me a seat in the front raw so I have some decent leg space, but when I boarded the plane a young mother with three children was sitting on the other one seat the leg space was full of all the luggage and two of her children were sleeping on the floor and I had no space to put my legs down. I tried to ask the attendents to move me to someother suitable place but with no success as the plane was completely full. I had to spend the next eighteen hours sitting side was with my legs on a very uncomfortable angle. I decided that day that never in rest of my life am I going to take PIA flight again.

Re: Comments on just about all the anti-kid responses

Shame on all you guyz! Kids are a gift from God to mankind.

The little angels with the shining faces ... the halo over their little heads ... singing humpty dumpty sat on a wall ... eating cheerios, drinking milk out of a glass, with a chocolate moustache after they`re done ... instead of out the carton like some teenagers and adults. Their little mischevious antics, their little innocent laughter and pranks ... the innocent, incapable of sin, social security for their parents in their old age, their little shoo-shoo requirements ... a pox on you all!

Kids, who needs `em. The little rascals are out to eat their parents alive, little ogres. The devils spawn itself I swear. Satan`s little helpers. Breaking, tearing, destroying, maiming, cutting, biting, scratching, yelling, screaming, hounds of hell! A pox on those who would concieve

them! A moment`s pleasure ... a lifetime`s regrets!

Dualism is a beautiful philosophy.

Satan & G-D are but one and the same.:)

To HAVE or NOT to HAVE, that is the question.

Re: Omar1974 # 10

....and religion is the devil`s concubine!

Re: Ferozk

Is that what you call, `the sweets of sweet philosophy`, Feroz? :)

Not that i necessarily disagree with anything you said. But since you are the resident philosoph ... and i do find this thread amusing...

Re: OMAR1974 #13

Une philosophé, moi? The only philosophical tradition which I adhere to is Cynism. I am a cynic in the the sense that I search for the truth knowing that I will never find it. Also, I am a lot like Diogeneus. He was an ancient Greek who walked the paths of Athens carrying an oil lamp so that he could see an honest man!

Now if you combine these two thoughts, you`ll gain a better appreciation of what my philosophical inklings are. As to the ``sweet sweets of philosophy``, those lie in the unfettered pursuit of knowledge itself and hence, the origins of the term philosophy itself: love for knowledge.

Omar, ask yourself why, in the ancient Greek mythology, did Prometus steal the fire from the gods only to return it. In a rather oblique fashion, this will answer your question about my motives, in pursuing Temporal`s idea, and I will answer you by quoting from a poem by William Butler Yeats;

those that I fight I do not hate
those that I guard I do not love...
nor law nor duty bade me fight,
nor public men or cheering crowds,
a lonely impulse of delight
drove to this tumult....
a waste of breath seems the years behind
and a waste of breath the years to come,
in balance with this life, this death.

I was fortuneate, both in high school and in college, for having teachers who always encouraged me to ask ``why`` and never be satisfied by answers which began with, ``because...`` To paraphrase a minor poet, fight, fight where ever you may be for knowledge`s cause....

Hope this helps!

Nietzche carried a similar lamp. His conclusion ?

G-D is DEAD. In fact he were never born at all.