See you!Rapid footsteps fall all around me. Heat in the middle of winter and I sniff a moist air that feels so familiar. An elderly woman is sweeping the corridor. Her nose ring is brilliant in the afternoon sun. I am measuring my shadow as I go past her. Red Letters on the white washed walls - "This is your Airport. Please Don't Spit." I am dragging the luggage cart (
free! didn't pay a penny for it) towards the
conveyor belt at the Customs.
Madam ji. Chhod do, main daal dunga. Oh, this is too big a suitcase for a female! For that matter, a bag of any size is too big for women here. I love it! I feebly thank him as I collect my bag at the other end and walk to the exit. Happy faces waiting for someone of their own,
salwar kurtas, Gandhi's face on 100 rupees note and a faint smell of Pond's
talcum powder.... I am wondering why was I away.
O didi, flower le lo. BeauTifoool flower. Aapke like very beauTiful flower didi! Bees rupees main lagayega aapko. Please take didi. She wore a deep blue dress. Her hazel brown eyes were squinted in the high sun. She was still speaking to me in her broken English as she placed a bunch of yellow daisies in my hands. I bought those flowers.
I left the airport in one of those black and yellow taxis with my suitcase jutting out of the trunk at the back and held in place by rope. A bill board in front of me had an Indian bride in her complete attire saying "
Kaas mere saath aisa na hota" - promo of a new TV soap opera. Behind me, the same blue dressed girl was now talking to a couple under the sign of
Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
Sir beauTiful flower, Sir ji. Aapke galfriend ke liye Sir. Please take.....[[Some moments are so fluid that I can't hold them and frame a picture. But they brush past so effortlessly without the slightest
gung-ho and I stumble upon snatches of my identity. Adequate in their impact on me, such moments drift away from the memory board like the image I see every morning in the mirror when I stand before it. I do not shriek in joy, not even a customary nod. But there is a comfort in meeting yourself; a plain
unawaited chance
meeting and everything in my world oddly seems to be alright.]]
