Aboard Air India, a little India in the air
THE NRI LADY SITTING NEXT TO ME STARTS POURING IN MY UNWILLING EARS THE DETAILS OF HOW THE DEMONETISATION SCARE HAD MADE MANY INDIAN WOMEN RUSH TO THE MOTHERLAND TO UNEARTH THE HIDDEN TREASURES AND PUT THEM TO SOME USE
Iam in flight mode once again. The journey this time is bound to be different because I am travelling by our very own desi airline. My fellow fliers are all compatriots and needless to say, I find it comforting. I recall the lines I came across sometime back: “It is true that we Indians will do anything to go abroad, yet as soon as we reach there we start clamouring for Indian company and searching for Indian food.” Wonder how writers are such good mind readers!
Many of the passengers are old and on wheelchairs, perhaps due to the fact that it is a direct flight without any stopover. The best place to kill the eight-hour-long wait at Delhi airport would be the food court, I decide. The place is lively in the real sense of the term. People greedily savouring their food, thumping each other’s shoulders, laughing to their heart’s content. ‘Eat drink and be merry, as there is nothing to carry’, the lines written outside a small tea shop in Tarn Taran, which we often used to visit in the early seventies, flash in my mind and make me smile.
After the flight is flashed on the board, I start towards the lounge. I am beckoned by an eager-looking couple to sit next to them. They are visiting the United States for the first time and want to share their fear of the unknown. They are full of apprehension and confess that they were not happy leaving India to settle down in America, but were doing so on the insistence of their daughter who had applied for them years ago. Instead of being excited about going abroad, they are talking about their son and grandchildren they are leaving behind in India.
After the welcome by the captain in typical Indian accent, and the usual instructions about safety, hurried check of the seatbelts, and straightening up of the reclined chairs, the plane is rattling on the runway. The boisterous youngsters lose no time in putting on their earphones and switching on the monitors to watch Hindi movies. The NRI lady sitting next to me starts pouring in my unwilling ears the details of how the demonetisation scare had made many Indian women rush to the motherland to unearth the hidden treasures and put them to some use instead of letting them become defunct. She herself was carrying two suitcases full of dresses for her granddaughters in America. My switching on the monitor is not a hint enough for her that my attention span is rather short when the subject is not to my interest.
After 15 hours of flight, we land in San Francisco. Driving me to his house, my son says, “Mom, I am waiting for your favourite dialogue.” I reflect and say, “Oh the dialogue? That the journey has been torturous and this was going to be my last? Well, this time the journey never started son, my loving, overindulgent, noisy co-passengers did not allow me to step out of India. I don’t seem to have travelled at all.”
The bewildered look on my son’s face amuses me, and both of us laugh our way through the serenity and beauty of California. aswantkaur@yahoo.com The writer is a Tarn Taranbased freelance contributor