Chapter 3
Raghav
It’s been ten minutes of rain and the road outside is already flooded. Every time we make something shiny, we expect it to work and then it doesn’t, and we fault ourselves for being hopeful. ‘I can’t believe this is after ten minutes of rain,’ says Aditi.
‘I mean, in defence of the corrupt contractors who must have designed this apparently state-of-the-art airport,’ I point at the hailstones banging against the glass walls, ‘it’s end-of-days kind of rain. The traffic must be crazy.’
‘Rain’s just an inconvenience when you are a grown-up,’ she says.
We watch the guys manning the parking stations wading towards the terminals, knee deep in water.
The hordes of relatives who were waiting outside have retreated into the parking lot and have found higher ground.
The visitors’ area is now packed, and they have stopped selling tickets.
Like us, everyone complained about the shoddy infrastructure, but now everyone has quietened down.
That’s the beauty of the people of this country: we accept our misery so easily that it keeps getting dished out.
The arrivals board flips again. LKO-DEL. Diverted. JAI.
‘Now what?’ asks Aditi.
I shrug. ‘Could be anything. The airline people do anything. Maybe they will make them wait on the tarmac there, or maybe they will fly out tomorrow morning. Who knows?’
Aditi’s eyes are stuck on the rain pattering heavily against the wall.
‘Hey? You okay?’
She nods, but it’s clear she’s not. I know if I ask her once more, she will be a pool of tears. At times like these, I ask myself what would Megha do in a situation like this, and this is one of them.
So I ask her again, ‘You okay?’
She looks at me, her eyes suddenly pools of tears and says, ‘I’m not okay. He should have been here. He’s not being fair.’
I have a feeling she’s doing what I was doing, misplacing her frustration. My mind wanders to the letter she wrote to her family. What tone did she choose? Disappointment? Anger? Extreme sadness?
‘I mean, yes, but it’s not really in his hands,’ I tell her. ‘It’s the weather.’
‘I don’t care if it’s in his hands or not,’ she says, wiping her tears on the back of her T-shirt sleeve. ‘He always does this.’
‘He’s not the god of thunder.’
‘Why won’t you let me complain?’ she says. ‘It’s between him and me. It’s our love language. I complain, he explains.’
‘Sure,’ I say, and I’m thrown back to what our love language is. Apart from other things, it’s to not complain. She never complained on days when I worked nights on end trying to make data look better so my company could pick up more funding.
‘Why are you boys like this?’ she says, sniffles and wipes more tears on her sleeve.
I continue, ‘Megha’s logical too. In fact, she’s more logical than I am.’
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ she says. ‘When do you think they will land in Jaipur?’
I check the time. ‘Another fifteen minutes.’
‘Do you think they will not fly today?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ I tell her and shrug.
The waiting hall’s now filling up, lines are forming in front of Costa Coffee, Vaango and other outlets.
The forgotten patties and the soggy fruitcakes are finally getting the attention they never deserved.
Watching the girl texting again makes me open Megha’s chat too.
I click a picture of the crowd near me and send it to her with a text.
Me
Out of all these people, I’m the luckiest one.
It doesn’t reach her, of course. Instead, her last texts stare back at me.
Megha
We are not making a mistake?
Megha
Sorry.
Megha
I meant, we are not making a mistake.
It’s one of the few times that Megha made a typo. If I were into signs the universe sends out, I would have freaked out.
I had replied lamely, No, we are not.
I’m about to put the phone back into my pocket when a single tick appears, and then a double tick. I hear Aditi.
‘They have landed!’
Before I can turn and nod, she’s already on the phone, walking away from me. As if on cue, my phone rings. It’s Megha.
‘Hello? Megha? Baby?’
‘Hey!’
‘They took you to Jaipur?’
‘Yes,’ says Megha. ‘It was so scary, Raghav. The entire aircraft was wobbling. It’s fine here, though. You’re still at the airport?’
‘Where else would I be? Are they telling you when you will fly again?’
‘No, no. People are shouting at the flight attendants, but what will they say? They also don’t know, na,’ she says.
‘So, are you deplaning or not?’
‘No clue,’ she says. ‘Wait, wait, they are making some announcement.’
I try to strain and listen, but I can’t make out what the captain is saying in a typical holding-the-microphone-too-close-to-their-mouth voice.
‘Why can’t they speak normally?’ I say.
‘Shh.’
The announcement goes on for another excruciating minute.
‘What did they—’
‘They are making us deplane. They will try to take us to Delhi in the morning. It will be a 5 a.m. flight, they are saying.’
‘Morning? They will make you wait at the airport all night?’
‘Wait, wait. I will deplane and talk to you.’
‘Okay.’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
‘I thought I would be with you by now, baby,’ she says. ‘Soon.’
‘Soon.’
Click.
I look at the clock. 7 p.m. By now, even with all the delays, Megha and I should have been sitting in a cab, her fingers intertwined with mine, and on our way to the apartment—our first apartment. And yet, here I am, in the midst of hundreds of sweaty bodies, grumbling and on the phone.
She’s 300 kilometres away. Distance makes the heart go irritated.
Outside, the rain has eased up a little.
I check the app and it’s showing a few cabs ten, and fifteen, and twenty minutes away.
I just can’t bring myself to book a cab for home.
Is it really home till the time she moves in?
Places her mugs on the shelves? Fixes the photo frame?
Decides what curtains we want to put up?
Without her, it’s just walls and fading paint.
‘It was nice meeting you.’
I turn to see Aditi standing behind me.
‘Umm . . . same,’ I say.
‘I will see you tomorrow morning, then?’ she says with a smile. ‘Did you find a cab?’
‘Ten minutes away,’ I say.
‘Awesome. See you then?’
I nod as she turns away from me. I glance back at my app, and once again, I can’t book a cab.
I should just stay here; what’s a few hours?
Back home, the wait begins again. Here, at least I will be at the cusp of something new.
Back home, I will be thinking about the family again.
The thoughts are already creeping up on me.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath and will myself that when I open them, I won’t think about them.
It’s easier said than done. When I open my eyes, I watch the crowd steadily leaving the waiting area. And that’s when I see her. Aditi’s lugging her overstuffed backpack walking towards an empty seat. She sets her overflowing bag aside, a few clothes jutting out of it, and pulls a book out of it.
Then, she retrieves her spectacles from her back pocket and puts them on, balancing them lightly on the bridge of her nose. I can’t tell if this is intentional or if her spectacles have become loose from mishandling.
She’s going to stay here for the night. This bag is all she has. For a moment, my mind races back to the cupboards at my new apartment, and the packed suitcases with the shirts and trousers I had splurged on in the first months of my job despite Megha harping on for me to save.
I don’t want to, but I have somewhere to go. But Aditi has nowhere to go.