Whatever you do, don't order a non-veg meal on an Air India flight. This is the regular advice I give to anyone who is about to go to India and asks for some cliff notes. Of course, this was before it was privatised or I would have recommended that they pack a parachute with them. Don't get me wrong. My advice for anyone travelling on a pre-privatisation Pakistan International Airlines was hardly any different. I have not travelled on either since privatisation, which is precisely why you have been warned.

My peculiar experience arose from a flight between Delhi and Mumbai. It was midday but they were serving breakfast. I generally don't like rabbit food. So, I ordered halal non-veg.

When this habit of ordering non-vegetarian food pays off, it pays off big. On a recent Thai Airways flight to Shanghai I ordered non-veg and received a customised dinner prepared by a Michelin-star chef. It was something of an out-of-body experience. I don't recommend an out-of-body experience that high in the sky.

On our Air India flight, what they brought back must have once been an egg but had long forgotten its true identity. Accompanying it was something that I would have called a dull version of poutine. Only it had something meaty in it which was, to put it mildly, not very agreeable. What I did to that meal or what it did to me, and continues to do so, is my trauma to keep. But the mention of halal seemed to have produced some mild interest in the uncleji sitting next to me.

I was in the aisle seat. I know I am now old enough to be called an uncleji myself. But fifteen years ago life was a bit kinder. So, the gentleman asked me if I lived in Mumbai. I said no. Then........

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