alvida

STA: 11:30 AM

ETA: 11:20 AM

Wow ! The flight is landing early... That rush in the last hour to reach the airport early seemed fruitful. Even if it was 11:00 yet and he had another 30 minutes at his disposal, he could not take chances for the fear of listening to a complaint of not waiting with open arms.

He started watching people: his favorite pastime. There were a number of them; waiting for their loved one’s to arrive. This girl leaning on the railing caught his eyes. She was a chubby couch potato clad in her patterned pajamas and graffiti Tee. Her messy hair, the hanging earphones of her i-pod and that ‘I m fuckin bored’ look on her face made it an interesting watch. She was holding in her hand, with the same carelessness, a thick novel: one that would take him a lifetime and still remain unfinished.

STA: 11:30 AM

ETA: 11:30 AM

The initial happiness of getting those extra 10 minutes was gone. They were really important, at a time when they had just one day and wanted to live a lifetime. A fresh bunch of people appeared at the ‘Arrivals’. Looks like another landing. 5th since he came. He looked for the girl again and didn’t find her at the place. Her boyfriend had arrived and they were more than hugging each other. It is not that he felt any hatred for the PDA’s. He just didn’t care. But now, it was different. He was uncomfortable.

STA: 11:30 AM

ETA: 11:40 AM

God !!! What the hell. Ten more minutes gone. Why do they give a hope when they can’t stand upto it. This thought made him even more uncomfortable. In the mean time people kept coming out of the airport with different moods. Some more pissed off by the hot and humid climate of Mumbai than the flight delays. He took a cup of coffee for the third time and kept trying her phone to check if she has landed.

His phone rings. “It’ll take me 10 minutes to reach.” Looked like everything now came in EMI’s. But this one wasn’t equal in any measure, neither quantum nor intensity. He kept his eyes at the gate searching through the flood of people. He had a difficult time recognizing her. It was her voice, he was acquainted with. She looked different from the last video chat they had. Different from all the photographs she had sent. They hugged each other but left instantly, uncomfortable with each other’s bodies.

They took a taxi and were heading for his flat which was at an hour’s distance. He was being too courteous, giving her a treatment befitting a lady. This came to her as a surprise as he was being more polite than he ever sounded. To her he seemed different from the one she knew. One she knew would pull her leg at every given chance and speak nonsense for hours together. But today he was silent. Both remained silent for the first quarter of their journey not knowing how to start. Their bodies were still strangers. They had known each other so well. They knew things about each other that nobody else knew. But…

She broke the ice with a casual conversation. She knew that she had to because this dumb will never do. With the voice came a comfort that they had always felt while talking to each other.