A Terminated Flight.

The plane gleamed like a white bird with folded wings, poised for flight, but bound to the earth by invisible chains. I waited in the sun, not noticing the sweat leaking hesitantly through every pore of my body. Sweat drops are like secrets, they are held back just to whet your curiosity, to tease, to kindle interest, even though you know they are going to pour out stream by stream anyway. But After five sticky hours of an extremely uncomfortable journey to Delhi, you stop noticing. You stop noticing the air conditioning in the lounge, the coolness of iced tea, the heat of the airline bus that glides through to the waiting plane, and you top noticing the sweat staining your “airport clothes”. Even after the skies were let open to be swept by the winds of liberalization, and the “aam admi” getting to fly and all that, the Indian mindset of dressing formally for airport trips (even to receive people!) was still firmly in place.

A huge white guy, fat, with small eyes and a large nose smiled at me, his double chin wobbling as he did so. “Hot here isn’t it?” His skin was red with the heat and he kept fanning himself with the TOI. I couldn’t place the accent, it seemed American, but I wasn’t sure. He was wearing a loose checked shirt and shorts, quite visible among the sea of full sleeves, ties and the mass of neatly pressed clothes. I surprised myself by smiling back at this stranger; his genial voice and warmth were hard to brush off. “It’ll be more sweaty at Chennai. Have you been there before?” “No…” “It’s an interesting place, you should explore it thoroughly to…. are you going there on business?”

He grinned guiltily as he glanced at his clothes, “Yeah business, I may not look like that, but.” He grinned widely. ‘I’m staying at …” his face scrunched up in effort as he strained to remember, “Fisherman’s cove. I’ve been told it’s very nice there.”

I nodded. “It’s got great sea food, do you like sea food?” He brightened as he heard this, and he leaned forward to hear me better as I continued. “You know, if you really want to experience Madras, you should get into the heat, dust and sweat of the roads and absorb the noises, the smoke, the sights. You should try the buses, sit on crowded beaches, take a walk in the Theosophical society, and eat in cheap local restaurants.” He laughed out loud, “Ah, the rapturous songs of a home bound bird, eh?”

“Yes. It’s my hometown” I replied as we boarded the flight. “I’m going home.”

I didn’t get to see that foreigner again, we were separated by he probably never got out of the air conditioned confines of fishy cove, to do what I’d suggested. As the flight took off, I wondered how he knew I was going home. Was it my palpable enthusiasm about extolling the virtues of my city to a visitor? Was it the excited tone of my voice?

As I settled into my window seat, book (the portrait of a lady) in my hand, I tried not to think of home, it was only 150 minutes away now. But Isabel Archer’s methodically messed up life failed to hold my interest for more than half an hour. As I looked out at the sunset, I asked myself, “What does home mean to me?”

Home was where I could wear my ugly fluorescent pajamas without feeling conscious, where I could eat with my hands without attracting attention, where I could sleep naked and not care, where I could take one hour baths in the winter without freezing, where I could go to the toilet without slippers, where I didn’t need to think twice before opening the wash basin tap, where I could forget that unwashed clothes existed, where I could wash my hair with shikha where I didn’t have to make decisions that ate away into my day at college (when do I wash my clothes? Do I need to wash these clothes? How many more times can I wear this? When will it be warm enough to take a bath?) OK, all this is keeping with the discomforts of a busy frantic demanding college life in a desert. What was home to me after cutting through these layers of superficial comforts? Home was where I could just be.

“Could you close the window please?” the guy next to be snapped his sleepy eyes ha;lf open, irritated by the rays of the sun that peeped in through the window.

Why does life have to be this way? You are looking out of a tiny window, straining hard to find answers for the troubling ruins of your life in the sunsets outside, but the rest of the world in a perennial state of indifferent slumber, and they force your window shut, so that they cant continue sleeping, and you get pulled down into their depths of inertia as well. I pulled down the shutter miserably, and then started eating. The best thing that can be said about airline food is that it takes your mind off other things.

Why do I say madras? The name was changed when I was six or so, and I had had no trouble adapting to it, unlike my parents who inevitably revert to madras. What I feel when these slips happen is what a parent would feel like when he uses a long forgotten nickname of his child by mistake, instead of his proper name. (I remember calling my sister by a string of nonsense syllables, something like “bush-um-bull-um” which was an accompanying tune whenever I pinched her cheeks, I’ll never forget the frosty expression that her face wore when I did it in front of her play mates, and the affectionate memory of her pet names just withered away in a cold death then.) Except that he is no longer a child, and the cold sting of his angry glare will tell you that he doesn’t want to be reminded of the helplessness of his naked childhood. Madras was an embarrassing alter ego, a sickening epithet, and an awkward ghost from the past that brash young Chennai wished to bury.

“Look outside” the excited scream of a child in front made me open the window, and I gasped as I leaned out. This was Chennai, at 16,000 feet away, it looked like a bejeweled bride.

I tried to make sense of the islands of sparkling light and darkness, was it the sea set against the rest of the city? No it couldn’t be. It was just that the part of the city that was throbbing with life shone against the land like diamonds scattered on black velvet. Roads gleamed like rivers of gold, headlights inched across tiny glowing ants, and skyscrapers twinkled like stars in the night. Which part of Madras was this? Sometimes the dots of lights seemed to grow larger, as if we were growing closer to the ground. As I stretched my neck to see better, I realized that this glorious view had been blocked by black clouds floating across the sky. Ironic I thought. Clouds of distance-separation- absence- longing- homesickness and painful alienation had blotted my relationship with my city. Alienation was a cruel word; it made me feel like my love affair with this place was nothing more than a series of one-night stands. How well did I really know Madras? The intimacy that existed seemed to be nothing beyond physical familiarity; it was like making love to a stranger, where your knowledge of the other’s body is the only thing that brings you together. This time, it’ll be different, I vowed to myself. This holiday will be different. I’ll no longer bury my estrangement issues under the cover of my lazy routines at home. I’ll enter the Damodar Gardens and walk around in the shadowy light of its perennial dusk, contemplating the twists of fate that made sure that I never entered the restful canopy of The KFI school. I’ll hitch a boat ride across the Adyar right till the last stretch of the estuary where the theosophical society stood magnificently with its aged dignity intact against the sea, the sand bars, the lagoon and the sea gulls. I’ll get on to the 29C at the smelly terminus and travel all the way to Perambur and back to savour the sights that my favorite bus offered. I’ll take catamaran rides from fishermen and watch the sunrise against the Bay of Bengal. I’ll travel to Mylapore in the first 29C of the day (4 am)and drink the freshest cup of the best filter coffee in the world. Some things don’t change- I consoled myself. Chennai or Madras- there are some treasures that haven’t been ravaged by the relentless march of this ruthless invader- time. I’ll make my peace with my hometown in these timeless realms. I swear I will.

I willed the twinkling dots closer, as if I had a premonition… maybe their smiles held secrets.

I opened my eyes to the wild rocking motion of the plane; it was swaying like a sinking ship in its last desperate moments. A voice, from a seemingly large distance cut through the noises of fear and horror in the cabin. “We are experiencing turbulence, please fasten your seat belts. We will…” the voice died along with the light in the cabin as the plane plunged into the dark depths below.

The diamonds of light got closer and closer, those dots got more fuzzy as they approached, the way tears on a beloved’s cheeks sparkle in a blur when you pull them closer into a hug. Madras was pulling us closer into final fatal embrace.

But this wasn’t death. I have been dead to Madras for a long time. I’d been alive only in a collective dream I had shared with it. Dreams filled with sand bars, mylapore mornings, beach sunrises, Damodar Garden- dreams not yet realized, sights not yet seen, visions not yet attained. And will never be.

No. It wasn’t me who was dying.

A briefly glorious flight that had died mid-trajectory. The wings of a dream had been crushed forever.