Mocking 'ghar ka khana' on flights, eh? The joke’s on sneering 'dehatists', since we know airline food is crap

A couple on a domestic flight unpack a meal from home. A steel thali goes on the tray table, followed by parathas, achaar, and a packet of dahi, whose contents they add to the thali. The two, described in reports as an 'elderly couple', quietly eat their meal, bothering nobody.

We know all this because the passenger next to them films the entire episode on his phone - their faces, his own face as he turns the camera on himself, and a zoomed-in close-up of hands reaching over the thali. He posts the video on social media, set to a popular Rajasthani love song. It goes viral, drawing comments on the couple's decision to eat home-cooked food aboard a commercial flight.

Gobsmacking, actually, are the online comments reproduced in a news story about the video.


Sekhar: Nothing wrong with eating home food in aircrafts (sic)... But putting together an elaborate thali seems more like an attention-seeking nuisance. Cud hav packed just...rolled sabji inside roti.'

Live & Let Live joins in: I don't want to call it Dehatism or blame the couple because they were not properly guided/educated/informed. Yes, this shouldn't be allowed.

Jesse Pinkman, bless his concerned Caucasian soul, makes another point: Imagine the filth. God forbid turbulence hits the aircraft. This is foolish.

Ashu joins in: Stop this. Why can't people control cravings for a 2hr flight?

Dear Sekhar, it's good that you think there's nothing wrong with what millions of Indians have been doing daily for over a century - carrying their own food when travelling on trains and buses, and often on 'aircrafts' as well.

I don't know your background, but do you really think a thali with a paratha, pickle and dahi is 'elaborate' and 'attention-seeking'? Have you ever been to an Indian wedding, or had a tyohaar meal (festive thaali)? And why the hell should someone make a kathi roll out of a paratha and pickle when they can carry an easily washable steel plate?

Live and Let Live, you have coined an amazing word, 'dehatism,' to go with another one I read the other day - 'povertarianism' (when you regularly speak up for people who are poor). The words I would use for you are hypocritical/imbecilic/deracinated/illiterate. It's clear that you neither understand English fully nor any of our traditional cultures. You are claiming that the people with the thali on the plane were not properly educated. But it's you who are a great example of a certain nouveau-dehatism.

Had you travelled outside our country, you would have flown with people of all kinds who aren't daunted by imaginary etiquette, people who will pull out vegan/gluten-free/kosher/halal/nut-free meals on their own plates the moment the aircraft reaches cruising altitude.

The basic etiquette of travelling is not to cause discomfort to your fellow passengers. This does not include mental pain and testicular trauma caused to morons who love genuflecting before some Westernised, profit-making rules laid down (or not) by airlines.

As for Jesse Pinkman, all one can say is: Pal, if the aircraft hits turbulence, it would be the same amount of mess as your airline food tray.

What have we become? What does it say about our anti-dehatists when the basic act of laying out a simple meal becomes such a red rag for them? What does it say about the fool who films the couple as if recording safari animals, and then turns the camera to his own smirking face? Why should airlines get to dictate what we eat?

Why should a passenger be forced to eat an extortionately-priced sandwich made of plastic bread that looks like it has vitiligo? All this is not about manners or safety. Just as with cinema multiplexes and other food and drink-controlled spaces, it's about nichoro-ing every last bit of profit from every corner of the hapless customer.

Till now, I've been happy to carry my home-made poha in a plastic tub when taking flights. But after this, I'm just going to carry a small thali and a full ghar ka khana meal.