There is nothing like an all-expenses paid horriday to get to know your fellow travellers in the great journey of life. I am, of course, referring to people who sit next to you on planes. This is one of the aspects of our ongoing sojourn here on Planet Earth that passengers have absolutely no control over. It is fated.

You can request a window seat on the left side so you catch a view of Mt Everest, you can book a bulkhead aisle seat a month before your flight so you can slip unnoticed into the First Class toilet to splash some cologne, but you can't tell the airline that you don't want to sit next to anyone whose armpit can be detected from the cockpit.

In fact body odour on airliners is emerging in recent years as the single most hazardous aspect of air travel to and from Tribhuvan International Aerodrome (Mission Statement: "Taking of the photography in, above, or under TIA is strictly prohibited Monday-Friday from 10AM-5PM and national holidays"). There are now stern security measures in force at TIA which require about 670 passengers to stand in a room measuring 3 m x 4 m for two hours while waiting for flights so that only the most determined travelers will get to board.

As a result of all this beefed up security, an average of 3,500 incendiary devices like lighters and 26,800 sharp objects like toothpicks are confiscated daily from potential terrorists just before they get on the plane. However, it is my duty to draw to the attention of the Ministry of Uncivil Aviation that no one is keeping track of malodorous passengers wearing socks in advanced stages of fermentation posing a hazard to sensitive on board avionics. (Flight Attendant: "Ladies and gentlemen, the use of laptop computers, mobile phones, CD players and taking off one's shoes during takeoff and landing is strictly prohibited. Anyone found violating this rule will be defenestrated after the plane reaches its cruising altitude of 35,000 ft).

People sitting next to you on planes can be divided into several taxonomical categories:
- Heavy-weight lifters. These passengers have more carry-on luggage than checked-in luggage and will occupy the over-head lockers (known in some airlines as "oval-head rockers") all the way from seat 31-38 so that there is absolutely no room for your orchids (known in some airlines as "all kids"). The thing to remember if you are seated next to a Heavy-weight Lifter is to wear a helmet while seated so that an item dropping out of the oval-head rocker doesn't give you a skull fracture.
- Recliners. This is a passenger sitting in the seat in front of you who will insist on reclining his seat so that his head lies on your lap for the duration of the flight. An effective antidote to recliners is to carry out a flanking manoeuvre by carefully pouring some Bloody Mary into his ear canal.
- Movers and Shakers. You are on the aisle and the mover and shaker next to you begins to display symptoms of what at first glance looks like an advanced case of dropsy. But all is not lost, sitting next to this guy all you have to do is lean on him to get a free thigh massage.
- Alcoholics Synonymous. Also known in some airline circles as "imbibers" they will guzzle beer, singing gazals on the morning shuttle to Delhi after taking two straight ones with their breakfast.
- Babes. No such luck. No one even remotely eligible for being shortlisted as Miss Photogenic will ever sit next to me. Babes are miniature versions of Movers and Shakers whose sole purpose on the fright is to wail non-stop while over the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
- Yakkers. That's me. Never sit next to me on a flight. I'll talk to you nonstop until you ask the flight attendant to give you another seat. Which was the idea, anyway