Flight of Fancy

Coming from home is never without a twitch of heaviness in the heart. It has been such always with the only exception of the time when I came to Bangalore for the first time. Then the excitement had overpowered every other emotion. Or maybe I was too naive to make out the difference. At that time it had felt like yet another vacation, and it took a while for me to realize that from then on vacations would become home bound.

Interestingly, after nearing three years in this city I am confounded with the big question that did I fly back home or fly away from home this morning?

It was a queer two and a half hour flight, two and a half hours or jumbled thought, two and a half hours of interestingly silly observations, two and a half hours to collect my thought before I get back to 'my' and only my life.

O mere humrahi, meri baanh thame chalna,
Badle duniya sari, tum na badalna.
Pyar humein bhee sikhladega,
Gardish mein sambhalna . . .

That was the background music that was playing repeatedly in the aircraft. It was like a sequence of songs, and I hardly noticed any of the other tunes, but every time this one came on I invariably found my attention driftingly commanded by it. So in a way I felt this was the only song they played throughout the flight.

Then there was this gentleman sitting a few seats ahead who was constantly checking the same old mails over and over again, selecting and de-selecting the same line, scrolling up and scrolling down. So I began to wonder what is it that he is doing. My head started spinning off stories of love and romance, girl that was, is or may be. Was it a fight they were having, a deadlock, old memoirs or a future hope? I was weaving all those lofty webs till I caught the words "Bug" and "Changes" and "ERP/CRM" etc, on the top as big subject line. What a disappointment, and all my romantic daydreams flew out of the window into the clouds below.

Next I realized all those lipstick marks I made in the course of the small flight, on the juice straw, on the plastic fork, on the coffee cup, on at least three water bottles, maybe there was a paper napkin too . . . the interesting thing is, the same lipstick looks a different shade on ever different surface. No wonder it has always been a cause of much trauma and drama in the history of man-kind.

Also I was making some to-do lists, enumerating to-pay bills, both of which are impossible to keep count of anyway.
Read a bit of the book I was carrying, and then gazed into the world around, and read a little again, and peeked more into lives around . . .

Finally, it was time for the much awaited landing, and I rearranged my bag, rearranged my thought and got ready to step out into open air rich with life supporting oxygen and a level ground below my feet.

But before all that, I made a note of all these thought that ran through that small space of time and large space of distance and temperature, and jotted it down on the blank side of my e-ticket, for I had pen and no paper, and the only paper they carry on board is the newspaper or toilet paper!

Touch down.