I write this sitting in the comfort of my home, secure in the knowledge that my loved ones and I are safe.
As the pandemic settled in India and we started working from home, I looked at my calendar on the wall, where I tracked trips, multiple-day meetings, and fun evenings out, and struck out all that had been planned for March. Those farewell outings. That training in Delhi. Soon, it stretched to April. That trip to Kolkata. Those dates in May, when I was expecting a friend from overseas. To be followed soon by a work trip to Bangalore, following which I’d hoped to spend time with my sister and her kids. One by one, other things went out the window. That UK trip plan in July, with an ambitious aim to pitch a tent and hope to get into a Wimbledon match. That solo trip I planned for my birthday.
Now, I wasn’t any kind of jetsetter as the title would make you believe, but I travelled for work or leisure regularly enough to be at the airport at least once in 2-3 months. And so it was that I started dreaming of airports a couple of months ago, having stayed put in Delhi for a grand eight months. That’s never happened in my history in this city.
But some day, I remembered the familiar act of walking from immigration towards the gates – the annoying carpeted floor of the Delhi airport, the ding-ding of the announcement from a lazy female voice, the water coolers, the shops dotted all along. With mild amusement, I remembered the Lakme Store, and the duty free shop where I gifted myself a Mac.
This is just one of the many, fleeting memories of airports that have been coming up. They come up at random times. While I eat. During morning meditation, or during shavasana after yoga practice, where the mind freely travels.
I remember:
- Landing into Chennai from Singapore, and craning my neck while still on the plane to find the ‘Theeyanaippu Nilayam’ [fire station] sign that for some reason truly meant my arrival into my hometown.
- The disbelief and disorientation when I landed in Bombay straight after winding up my life in Singapore – I couldn’t believe how close the slums were to the airport (I hadn’t been to Bombay in years then).
- The mudras of the Delhi airport.
- Going into raptures seeing German words in the Munich airport. I’d studied three levels of German in college, and was delighted to finally visit Germany.
- The confusion with how public toilets work in any European country (and Japan!) Where do you pay? What is this turnstile? Where is the toilet paper – outside the stall? How does this tap open? Memories of slyly hanging back and seeing what others are doing with the turnstile and toilet paper and taps and still fumbling when I get my turn. This was such a familiar routine – almost always, making my way around groggily, disoriented after a few hours’ sleep on the plane.
- Landing in Moscow and trying to get change for the thousand-rouble note at the currency exchange counter, and feeling stung by the way the counter operator shooed me away. Was this how Russia was going to be? (No, they were quite a pleasant people, largely)
- The ‘Welcome home’ sign that would flash on the screen in the airport, and the tiny gates that would swing open, letting me back into the country I called home for a few years. When I could breeze through immigration by scanning my passport.
- And perhaps my most special memory: landing in Tehran, going up and down a few floors trying to buy a SIM card, and finding the people who’d come to take us to Kashan, our first destination. They didn’t know any English. We didn’t think of Google Translate. We quietly followed them, hoping they were the right people, taking us to the right place. Within minutes of settling into the car, we were fast asleep. I remember waking up from time to time to see the early morning darkness give way to soft light, to see large, empty, beautiful highways, and stunning desert landscapes with hillocks of red sand, all painted in the soft glow of dawn. My first sights of Iran.
The airport memories are bizarre, but also strangely touching – they are reminders of a past that I’m so grateful to have, and they are reminders of what I’m missing now. But they also come with a spot of hope and I know the gratitude will be sky-high (hehe pardon the pun!) the next time I travel.
Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/hpnadig/‘s Flickr stream