The turbulence
The seat belts were fastened and one glance
over the right, his sight captured a bunch of sleepy co- travellers awaiting a
reassuring session of sleep. The take-off was smooth, though the view from the
window to his left apparently conveyed something else. Coincidentally the
window seat had a wing right in front of it. The shaky drive through the fog in
the skies of Jaipur made the wing look so vulnerable. In the dark of the night,
was a two and half hour journey and a plethora of thoughts circling in his
mind’s eye. Now that he wasn’t lonely, he did feel he was alone. As the
aircraft soared up, up in the air, he got engrossed in thoughts deep, deep
within – many thousands feet under.
“Excuse me, Sir” the flight attendant
called out. When he heard that for the second time, he realized she was talking
to him. She gracefully read out his name from the passengers’ list, and posed a
question regarding the food preference. “What would you like to have, Sir? We
have South Indian rice with Sambar in Vegetarian menu and Chicken Biriyani as
non vegetarian food item”. Usually he wasn’t that bad a listener. He was a
obsessed perfectionist for a peculiar attention to detail. But this time it was
different - on a cold night, on a turbulent late night flight, and somewhat
equally shaky thoughts, straight from the heart, he was kind of lost out. So
lost out in the journey was he that he didn’t spare attention to the beautiful
air hostess’s words. Making way through his array of thoughts, after couple of
seconds he blurted out, “Can you tell me, what do we have in veg meals,
please?”
As he looked out the window, the moment
there was of turbulence - through the fog laden skies of northern India. The
flight became a bit shaky at times. It was realized by those who were awake
just like him. For a few seconds, he missed a beat and remembered God. So close
to God he thought, he was. He looked to his right, the fellow passengers had
been fast asleep. He looked above and then again to his left, outside the
window, with a half broken smile. May be this was the second or third time in
his life that he felt this left out. The last time when he felt so, probably he
did not want to recall. A thought crossed his mind, if this night
would be his last, or probably another day.
He sipped in the tea placed on a neatly arranged
food tray. The first gulp of tea made him stumble as the much vapor state gave
quite an effect to his tongue. He kept aside the tea cup back to the tray. And
as he looked at it, he recalled she liked it served cold. Her regular favorite
was ice tea.
After finishing his Café Latte they were
about to leave the coffee shop. She had finished her veg sandwich. Surprisingly
though, she was having a not so regular favorite; cold coffee, for a change. He
was in an altogether different mood. He had made up his mind to ask her out
that fine day. For that he would first have to put forth his feelings and
propose his love to her.
He
remembered the day he had first seen her, in his second year of college. She
was a year younger to him. These three years of togetherness made him so
possessive about her. So comfortably confident was he, for opening up about his
feelings to her. The way she spoke, her graceful walk, the anecdotes she shared
was all his. Nobody could take these away from him he thought. The only person
that could do so – was she, herself.
The shaky aircraft that it was an hour ago,
had now taken control over itself. Now, on the tray was a finished carton of
meal. Along with that was a wrapper of chocolate, a half filled bottle of packaged
water and the cup of tea that he sipped a bit when the meal tray arrived at
first. Now even the tea was turning cold. The turbulence had receded and the
flight was charting its way down towards Mumbai. The landing was due in the
next 30 minutes time. Amidst the turbulence, at 35000 feet above the ground,
life had continued.
She had abruptly left the coffee shop, upon
hearing his thoughts. She picked her hand bag and zoomed out of the frame of
his eye, as she called out an auto rickshaw, and left within seconds. Was that
the correct decision he thought, to express out his feelings, or should he have
waited. He was stunned and shaken with her response that was uncertain and
unknown. Not a word, did she speak as she left. On his walk back to their table,
their 3 year long togetherness flashed in front of him. As we walked back, he
saw she had forgotten the book she was reading, on the same table. The cover
page of the book displayed “A walk to remember”.
