A Flight of Thoughts

                                     I

The aircraft is tiny, like a matchbox, albeit designer. It has only two seats on each side of the aisle, a total of four in a row. The seats look flimsy and even a little naked, covered with thin brown rexine. I am glad that they have placed me alone on my side of the aisle. It would have been uncomfortable had someone sat on the seat next to mine. In this cramped space, we would invariably, have spent the entire flight warring over rights to the arm rest. Sending a quick prayer of thanks to the heavens for this small mercy, I place my purse on the empty seat and lie back to savour the flight.

But the take off is ungainly, as if the craft is an ostrich trying to take to the air. But as we gain altitude, the plane flies more confidently, like it were happier up here in the sky than on the ground and more in control.

 I look down the little glass porthole onto the beautiful valley below. The Dhauladhars are encased in clouds and invisible. But the valley is clear and deep green, with little elevation of hills clothed in pines and the occasional eucalyptus. Tiny houses with red and green roofs dot the landscape, sometimes solitary, sometimes in small clusters. The man on the seat behind me remarks- Looks like Europe!

I feel happy. I am not sure if I will ever see Europe's little houses in this life; so at the moment, I am just happy to see Himachal's.

I turn my gaze inwards and when I return to the window, I spot a brown construction just below me. The colour of clay, it looks like the sandcastles that children build on seashores. It is the Kangra Fort, said to be one of the oldest in the country. I had been twice to this place and had loved it, my experience enhanced by the audio guide that one could hire at the entrance to the fort. It is an ancient and imposing structure with a rather bloody history, full of murdering maurauders and self immolating Ranis. From this height it looks toylike and I can now appreciate with full awe, how precariously it clings to the knife-edged top of the clay coloured mountain. Two rivers run at its base and converge ahead, the mingling of the monsoon-muddy waters creating a white surf that I can spot even from the flight. The river runs forward and as our plane moves ahead, I can see that it flows directly into the mighty Beas. I follow the Beas now snaking its way down into the Punjab plains; but soon everything turns hazy as we gain more and more height. Then, the clouds cover the earth completely and sleep covers my eyes.

A sudden shaking jolts me awake. The smoggy Capital lies under us now. My seat is just behind the wings and I can see the rotors whirring. Below us, the earth is hazy brown and in places grey clouds float, behind which the city plays hide and seek with the sun. The little plane shakes as it hits a turbulence and I grab the seat handle in trepidation. The weather above the Capital, as the pilot cheerfully informs us, is a "little" windy and the tiny craft is tossed around for a bit. Though not really alarmed, I find myself thinking: what if we went down....you know, down , down, down.......?

The first thought that comes to my head is -uh ho, I hadn't finished the new post for my blog that I had begun the day before...
Other thoughts follow in rapid succession:
Hadn't taken Mimie on a walk all the way downhill and back.
Hadn't told Other Half that it was sweet of him to see me off at the airport even though I was going only for a couple of days.
Hadn't taken out the jasmine from the pot and planted it in the ground.
Hadn't worn my green dhakai and my pink gold edged chiffon , waiting for a 'special' occasion.
Hadn't got into shape to get into the blue dress hanging in my closet.
Would miss the LCR89 Trek to the Valley of Flowers next year.
Hadn't begun working on my Pulitzer prize winning novel.
Hadn't spoken to so many dear friends for ages.
Hadn't, hadn't, hadn't.... Too many unfinished businesses, too many yet to commence works....
(I never knew I was so keen on my life......!)

I look around me. The turbulence has stopped. People are sitting easy again, relieved and even a little jubilant at weathering the storm successfully.

The aircraft too seems to have gained in confidence. Forgetting its old awkwardness with the earth, it swoops gracefully now and performs a perfect touchdown. All morbid thoughts evaporate from my brain as I rustle around, collecting my things. The inventory of unfinished businesses and unfulfilled wishes is all relegated hastily to the rear locker in my mind. They would have to wait patiently for their time to come.
You see, my pest of a niece is eagerly waiting for her Pishi. And we have some mighty serious games to play just now.

                           II

I catch another flight, this time to Modi Land. Thankfully, this aircraft is of the standard size and the seats more comfortably padded and kinder to my aging bones.

The flight attendant is dressed to kill. Tight fitting blue skirt-suit that hugs her curves in all the right places, blue scarf gathered in a natty angle at her throat. She is busily going about her job, striding up and down the aisle, shoving carelessly stuffed luggage properly inside the overhead bins, shutting them with a firm thud, answering petulant calls for water and seat change requests, soothing a harassed mom with a bawling neonate in her arms, reminding us to fasten our seat belts/lift the window shutters/straighten our seats.......

But majority of the passengers, instead of paying attention to her words, are just checking her out, the men mostly, some even shamelessly turning their necks to follow her as she passes them by. I too am guilty of ogling as I measure that woman against the millions of parameters that I have inherited as an Indian and as a woman...facial beauty, figure, complexion, hair, accent, gait, teeth...........
And she doesn't measure up to my standards of beauty. Her makeup is done with an amateur hand: too much foundation, of the wrong shade, ultra bright lipstick that turns her complexion ashen, black liner applied with so much precision that it converts her eyes into cruel orbs....

But she is efficient, gentle and courteous to all and I find myself liking her inspite of her awful makeup. And my heart goes out to her when a chap sitting in front, it seems to me, deliberately nudges her behind with a folded knee placed over the edge of his aisle seat. One cannot say with certainty whether he has done it on purpose and like all immaculately mannered Indian males, he doesn't apologise. I catch her give him the
"what the #@&% " look, but it's a split second one because she knows as well he and me, that she has no shred of evidence that it wasn't accidental. She moves on and my blood boils for a little while. But there is zilch that I can do.

It's time for food now and I've decided to splurge. The man sitting next to me has a prebooked order and he is getting scared she will miss him and move off with the trolley. He puts out his hand impatiently with his boarding pass as she is serving the seats behind ours. She tells him very gently, "I'll just come to you Sir."
The man is reassured and settles back into his seat. She reaches us and after serving my neighbour, reads out my name, "Ms Aibee what would you like to have?"
Her eyes have shadows in them. But her smile is intact. She reminds me of the hundreds of women around me I see everyday, young women with stars in their eyes, burdens on their shoulders and an unquenchable urge to succeed. I have seen in them a deep dedication to their work, whether they be young women doctors just out of med school, baby executives in MNCs, the girl who does my eyebrows at the salon or my maid in Shillong. Most of them work in thankless situations but I've always seen them attempting to give their best even when their best is rarely appreciated.

"A little appreciation costs so little and means so much!" I think. I remember how, even in my current don't-care-two-hoots stage, the day the Boss drops a 'good work Aibee' on me, I return home and treat myself to jalebies in contentment.

The girl hands me my sandwich, water and drink with her smile in place. I say 'thank you' and then smile back. Not the polite business smile that she had given me, but a deliberate, cheek blowing, eye crinkling, misshapen teeth baring, BIIIGGG smile.
Her plastic smile stops in its tracks, fades and is replaced with a real smile, one that reaches up to her eyes and touches both our hearts.

For just a moment. But it's worth it.

For both of us.