I turned to look at her face in the light filtering in through the window. The shutters ought to remain open during take-off. And I prefer it that way. Unless the sun is too bright and I am blue. The sun shone off her face. She was young and I could see the youth reflected in her eyes. I thought back of the time when I was young and admittedly cocky and arrogant. She was beautiful, no doubt. Everyone is in their own way. The right side of my face was beginning to warm in the patch of sunshine. I liked it. She saw me looking at her and I could see her cringe a little, her spine, relaxed earlier, became tense. She readjusted her seat belt and glanced around, letting me see that she was uncomfortable. I did not want to make her feel so, yet I did not relent.
I was reminded of the days of my youth, the numerous journeys I undertook and the places that I had been to. At a point I had started collecting the various boarding passes from my travels. The collection must be lying in one of the boxes where I had packed the rest of my life in. Perhaps gathering dust that seeps in even in closed boxes. Like melancholy that seeps into your heart even when you are not alone. Time heals many wounds but wrecks more on the soul. If one has a soul, that is.
I turned around and stared outside the window. The aircraft was picking up speed and was ready to take-off. I wondered about the life my travel companion would lead. She would, no doubt, have plenty of friends and would be in college. Or perhaps she had recently finished college. She seemed to be of that age. She would perhaps be working. Or maybe she is a writer who travels a lot and writes about the places that she sees or the people that she meets. Romance, I silently rebuked myself. All that I see is romance in people’s life. Not everyone has the liberty of following their heart. Not everyone is successful. Not everyone sees the world as I do.
I glanced at her face again. Her blonde hair curved and blended into her jacket. She was wearing light makeup. We were up in the sky. I am usually not a person who bothers other passengers during my solitary travels but today was an exception. “You look quite familiar”, I told her. She turned to look at me. “You know…you are old enough to be my father. Can you just not nod off to sleep or something?” she said, clearly very irritated. She must have thought of me as a pervert. I was furious. Grey hair is not immunity to humiliation. I turned my face to the other side and stared into the clouds.
I thought of the life that I had led, the sting of recent humiliation like a throbbing vein in the head. So many times there had been babies with my co-passengers. I recollected the forgotten face of one of them as she had looked at me with her bright big eyes. I have not been one of those people who play or befriend a strangers’ baby. Yet that baby had looked at me, soft blonde hair on her head. For all I knew, she could have been my co-passenger now. She certainly was just old enough. Who cared?
For the remainder of the trip, I wondered silently about the various brief encounters we had all the time. At the airport. At the coffee shop. At a book store. We come, we see each other, never meet, and go on with our lives. For all we know, they come back to us in ways we would never know. What about that baby who kept staring at me? Perhaps she wanted me to pat her head? And I did not. Of course, she would never remember…but what if I actually had done it? Maybe nothing would have changed. Brief chance encounters…I doubt people even register.
- Parekh, Pravesh
October 06, 2014; 03:20 PMNew Delhi International Airport
En-route to Bangalore
