Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the excuse

Unless you have been on a social media fast and have also angrily exited all WhatsApp groups last year, surely you have heard by now about Shankar Mishra, a man accused of getting up from his seat in a New York-New Delhi flight and going over and peeing on a fellow passenger and complete stranger.

- NISHA SUSAN

Mishra went on the run under international spotlight and was then caught. That was in the last week of November 2022. Have you since heard about what his lawyer claimed on his behalf in a magisterial court? If you have already, you may skip the paragraph below to avoid unnecessary elevation of your blood pressure. If you haven't, apologies. And we need to talk about apologies.

The lawyer argued that it wasn't Mishra who urinated, as he had admitted soon after the incident, but the complainant, the 70-year-old woman passenger. Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta told the judge. "I (Mishra) am not the accused. There must be someone else. It seems she herself urinated. She was suffering from some disease related to prostate. It was not him. The seating system was such that no one could go to her seat. Her seat could only be approached from behind, and in any case the urine could not reach to the seat's front area. Also, the passenger sitting behind the complainant did not make any such complaint."

Look at this thali meal of excuses. I didn't do it, she did-the classic excuse of the person who farted and was smelt out. Next, she has a disease that only I, Shankar Mishra, know about. She, the complainant, was able to somehow defy gravity and biology and urinate upwards in a way that soaked all her clothes and her bag. Next, she did not pay extra during web check for her seat choice to ensure that she could avail of my special in-flight golden shower facilities. (On the side, I just want to say that no defence lawyer should use the phrase "could only be approached from behind" without intending to sound even more like a gigantic creep. Just my vishesh tippani.)