When you spend 20 hours with nothing to do - literally: my ipod ran out of power, couldn't concentrate on Jack Welsh's strategies on winning, my laptop went into 'hibernation' and never woke up...you end up observing, perceiving, retrospecting and introspecting. Observing people is fun.............except when they catch you staring and throw a questioning and sometimes annoyed look back at you. I was among people from absolutely every walk of life.
A bunch of old indian couples proudly announcing that they were going to visit their sons/daughters who were settled in the states. The men is crisp khadi kurtas or patu dhotis along with their kolapuris and the women with their archaic yet beautiful diamond and gold jewellery and their zari sarees. Old couples are the sweetest, uncle holds aunty while she struggles to climb up the airplane stairs and aunty cleans uncle's saliva that he is leaking all over himself while he sleeps. It makes you wonder if you will ever find some caring soul who will grey with you. I don't know if it started as passionate love that has settled into this comfortable stage or is it just caring that comes out of living with someone for so damn long. Love out of loyalty - if I may call it that, can exist between a dog and a man who have lived with each other for a decade or so. Whatever it is, its beautiful to see such endearing couples.
Then there was the hauntingly beautiful mother that was trying to put her blue-eyed little one to sleep. I was drawn to her, I wanted to know her story. Her vacant stares as she patted the baby on its back, her sad smile when the baby tried to pull her hair and the most intriguing of all was the lack of a wedding band on her slender finger. She refused food for herself over and over again but made sure that the baby was fed properly. It almost seemed like the only reason for her to live was that little soul in her hands. I wonder what happened there.
Germans are known to be formal, uptight people who like things done the proper way and the best example of this was the suit-clad german who was obviously on a business trip to India ( wonder why he was in economy class ). And a stroke of luck had him seated next to this really old parsi uncle who looked like it was his first time on an international airplane. So amusing were the dynamics of their interaction that I was probably staring at them for a good fifteen minutes. At first the german totally ignored the Indian man next to him and went on with his business but when the meals arrived and he saw the old man struggling wit the yogurt container, he politely asked him if he could help...the Parsi man thrown off by his thick accent, thought that he was asking for his yogurt and protectly held to his chest while he repeated "Its mine..get your own jhogurt." I saw the german smile ( I never knew they could, seen so many grumpy ones) and then he opened his and put it on the old man's tray. The latter finally understood, muttered thank you's and slowly gave the german, his yogurt. Humanity is always at work eh!
The german air hostesses were like yesteryear actresses trying to look as young as possible. Garish make up barely hiding their wrinkles, updos with the scanty hair that was left on their heads, tight uniforms on their old forms......but i wont call them old hags because they were nice to me and did their job quite well. I asked for two glasses of red wine and was down and out for the rest of the flight ....thank god my eyes were actually hurting from all the staring i was doing... Reached houston quiet uneventfully after that, except those bloody airport officials taking my fav sunscreen away cos it was more than 100 mls....blah....i defend myself saying the surface area of my body needs more than that ,they laugh but don't return it..
1 comment:
You have narrated it very well. While reading, one can almost feel the happenings there.
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