The Warmest Welcome Home

 

Home at last! It’s been a crazy four days – between staying at home with mum and dad, driving, friends and this godforsaken heat. But it feels amazing to be back in Delhi. At this point, it just can’t get any better than this.

I went to my aunt’s house yesterday to meet my grandparents and meeting them was like the cherry on top. Every time I’d get back home, I would get a zillion watt smile for a hello from my grandad. That would just make my day and cure me of all the fatigue that I dragged home with me. This time it was the best welcome anybody could get, that I got from him.  I entered the room where my grandad was sitting. He immediately got up and felt my face. Suddenly he said, “Let me check. Am I dreaming?” 

And I was fully at home then. I love my grandad! :)

24th May and Airplanes – Part 2

So that was done. I got up from where I was sitting that evening around 8pm and went towards the security check booth. All was good and the only thing driving me crazy was my camera on the conveyor belt at the checking counter. A very paranoid I kept looking towards the X-ray machine while my camera was  on the conveyor belt. As soon as the woman at the booth was done frisking me, I ran towards my camera and took it with me.

All this while, I had been sitting and writing some kind of script that seemed to start forming in my head. So I thought I’d sit down and finish that. I found a place right in front of a display board at the waiting lounge of the airport. At around 8.15pm, there was an announcement that an Indigo flight was delayed to 10.30pm. I checked the display board to verify what I’d heard and heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that my flight was on time.

At around quarter to nine, I went to the gate and asked when the boarding for the flight was to happen and I was told that the flight is delayed to 10.30! I could’ve whacked somebody then and there. The poor flight attendant really got yelled at by me and a lot of other passengers when the boarding finally started. As if this delay wasn’t bad enough, when I entered the aircraft I heard the air hostess telling somebody that we’re not going to take off before 11pm because there was no captain.

Oh! How I just wanted to burn the entire Indigo staff alive and roast them to a crisp! The fools don’t serve food on the flight either, apart from their overpriced pieces of shit that the supposedly pretty air hostesses take around on a trolley. The flight finally took off at 11.30pm without any apologies or any food compensation.

What a terrible day! I don’t know if it was the day that was terrible or Indigo itself. One thing’s for sure, they didn’t make my experience even the teeniest bit better…

Lizzie again!

And she’s got a roommate too!

 

 

24th May and Airplanes – Part 1

 

24^th May, 2009 – That was the day I flew back to Delhi from Bombay after my exams got over. The exams had gotten over on the 21^st of May itself, but I had stayed back in Bombay in order to fix up stuff like my work plans and where I was to move in once I started working. Oh! What a feeling – to go home and not feel that you have to come back to a commitment towards a course that can drain the shit out of you at any point in time. It was finally over, and I was heading home. That was the only thought on my mind for the past month or so. So much so that I’d been calling up my parents almost thrice a day everyday just to speak to them. I think homesickness added to the anticipation and thrill of going home just made me want to go there a lot sooner. As I’m sitting here reflecting on what I just wrote, I just smile to myself at the thought of my flight being delayed by 3 and a half hours. Those many more hours for me to get home, ring the doorbell and shout out, “I’m home!”

This delay, as would be in a story from my ever-so-eventful life, isn’t a very ordinary one. Just like in the case of most flight delays, there is some sort of weather-related cause that drives the delay of the flight. In my case my flight was BOOKED a month in advance, hence the delay. As oxymoronic and grammatically incorrect as that sounds, it’s true! My flight was booked for the 24^th of June whereas it was the 24^th of May that I was to leave for Delhi. My ticket was booked exactly a week ago on the 17^th. My dad accidentally made that error. I got the ticket through email that very day, but I didn’t check. He didn’t check either (not that it was his job to – it was my ticket!)

So yea… I’m all packed and ready to leave my aunt’s house at 16:00 on the 24^th and very excited that I’m going back home.  Well, I reach the counter for the baggage x-ray so I can check in and then decided to take a look at my ticket. 24^th June. It said 24^th June. I wasn’t very happy when I saw that, so I called up dad and told him that he’d booked the ticket a month in advance for the wrong date. Step 2 was to go to the reservation counter and find out what’s the earliest flight I can catch to Delhi. 5:50pm, she said to me. “Ma’am, you can take the same flight to Delhi today. You just have to pay the difference”. I said okay, that sounds cool. So I asked her the difference and she said it was 5000 bucks. Holy shit! And I’d booked a flight ticket because it was cheaper than the train ticket. My lucky day isn’t it! “And the next flight? Can you book me a ticket on the next flight”, I asked. She willingly agreed and booked me the ticket for the 21:15 flight at a nominal difference amount of Rs. 2,500.

So I’m sitting here in a cafe, waiting for the clock to strike 8:00 pm so I can get my sorry ass up to the security checking counter and board my flight to home. What a day! I think my carelessness really cost me this time. And then there’s Aj who calls me up all the way up from Goa, and all I get from him are sniggers, which would be complete with him pointing at me and splitting his guts out laughing at my plight. And in the middle of all of this, thanks Batch! You’re the bestest and the patientest… REALLY!

Apologies…

It is a moment of celebration and apologies. I was walking down the passageway at home, and looked up at the lamp that once was the home of my pretty model, Lizzie. I was just telling Batch, “What a pity she died”. And then it happened. She moved! Lizzie moved!

I jumped up with joy and tapped the base of the lamp with my finger, but she didn’t move. So I tapped again, and voila! The head turned sideways and the eyes moved! THAT was the moment… My little Lizzie’s still alive! Oh what joy! :) I was standing under the lamp for the next 10 minutes looking up at little Lizzie and she kept making these quirky movements and then she walked around a bit. I guess she was just really tired that day when I saw her lying still inside the lamp. And now everytime I walk by, I take a good look at Lizzie comfortably coiled on the base of the lamp.

What a magnificent day, I say! :)

Cheers to Lizzie for still being alive!!

Homeward bound… which way, again?

An update on my life… A very important update. I’m finally going home… back home to Delhi! 

It’s crazy how our notion of home changes ever so often. Everytime I’d go from the hostel to Batch’s, I’d say to everyone… I’m going home. I’d call up Batch and say, “Oi! I’m coming home today”. Now that I’m finally going back home to Delhi, where my parents stay, I’m claiming to the world that I’m going HOME! But once that is done, I’m going to come back and settle in Bombay and I’m going to shift in with a friend. After I’m done with work or some social gathering of sorts, I’ll say I’m going back home. I hope I’m not left in too inebriated a state where I’m standing next to the airport between my house-to-be and Batch’s house, and thinking of going to Delhi and thinking… “So, which way is home?”

As of now, I just know I’m going back to my mommy and daddy. It just becomes a lot easier to deal with a (supposed) nomadic life when I say who I’m going back to, as opposed to what I’m going back to. Till I figure it all out, I just make peace with the fact that every place of stay becomes home. The first day I entered the hostel, the board on the wall said, “Your Second Home”. I think I should’ve started counting that day. I have a corny idea for my house-to-be in Bombay… 4th and still counting will be the board above my door. If you see it, you are most welcome to join me. Feel at home! :)

Obituary

I’m sure the Lizzie of the Lamp looked very beautiful and all that jazz, but sadly that didn’t last too long. 

She died a few days ago. I was out of the house for about 2 days – had to stay over a friend’s place in order to study for an exam. I came back to check on Lizzie and saw that she wasn’t moving. I thought she was sleeping, so I tapped the base of her pretty home. She didn’t move an inch. That’s when my heart skipped a beat. I dragged the stool from the other room and placed it under the lamp. What I saw wasn’t the most pleasant sight. Lizzie was lying there still and in a position that would give anybody a very bad backache. My friend kept saying from behind, “It’s okay. I think she’s dead”.

I guess she is. Thanks Lizzie for all the photographs! You’re the best.

I’m sorry if I kept the light on too long…

Exam Paranoia

As I was sitting in class writing my exam paper on Media Ethics and Law, a very bizarre incident happened which made me realise something that never really had struck me as very important.

I was sitting on my seat, peacefully writing about how there’s monopoly in the Indian media when I suddenly felt an urgent need to visit the washroom. So I got up and started walking out of the classroom. The invigilator looked at me with a deadly piercing glance and asked me where I was going. A very bewildered I replied I was going to the washroom. Under normal circumstances, you’d expect an ‘ok’ or some sort of ‘carry on’ kind of gesture. I was surprised to get a violent protest in the form of a response, protest against going to the washroom in the middle of the exam. She was glowering at me as if she’d discovered some secret intention of mine to stick chewing gum in her hair. During the entire duration of the exam, I spotted other colleagues of mine who looked equally restless and annoyed because of not being able to relieve themselves!

At this point, it struck me how paranoid people get about exams! Till now I’d seen 40 other girls break their heads over marks and other such authority-imposed judgments and I thought to myself that they’re just too paranoid about performing well in the exams, scoring marks and prove to themselves that they can do well in life only when labeled a number or an alphabet by someone who is in a lawful position of authority… Eee!! It’s quite a crazy thought…

So coming back to where I was, it struck my that this blessed system is based on the paranoia of having to fail – not in terms of marks alone. Failing is the only fear that this system creates. Nobody ever wants to fail at anything… examinations, efforts, work, even invigilation! What if the student you just sent out went to the washroom, cheated and came back? Are you so caught up in your little paranoid world that you can’t spare a student a minute to go to the washroom?! It’s quite crazy… It’s like, once you’re put in charge of 40 slaves labouring it out over 25 sheets of paper and a single pen in order to earn some marks, you think you’re in charge of the system! So you start pacing around the room with that oh-i’m-so-much-superior-because-i’m-a-teacher attitude and start throwing your weight around (which at your age is quite a LOT!)… and you feel like you’ve achieved something really great. You do realise, that you’re just a measely pawn employed by the system to sign answer scripts so that they can keep this control system in place, right?!

But what amazes me is, weren’t you part of the same shit while you were growing up? Were you so submissively accepting of all these impositional norms that you don’t feel the need to question any of these? Would you rather be party to all of this and in a manner that makes it even worse? What kind of sadistic pleasure is that!

All Aboard Flight 666!

Finally the day came. I just saw Flight 666 – a documentary on Iron Maiden’s epic tour Somewhere Back in Time in the year 2008.

Wow is the only word I’m left with after watching the film. Literally larger than life experience… Just to sit and watch Smith go crazy on the guitars and Harris ‘tickle’ the bass up there on stage… well, projected :)

And Bruce!! Wow.. He just never ages, man! That guy’s a showman. Nicko, Dave, Gers… they’re all just brilliant – a brilliant blend for the world’s most amazing heavy metal band.

The film is an amazing hook into their lives backstage, especially on a tour like this. In a jet piloted by the Air Raid Siren, Bruce, himself, the film takes off brilliantly with Aces High and closes, as expected, with that epic hit Hallowed Be Thy Name. By the start of that song, I was already standing in the middle of the movie hall going crazy. And to listen to Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Powerslave performed live on stage was THE most amazing experience of my life.

Somewhere Back in Time, even through this film, served its purpose for me. To take me back into a timespace where Maiden performed tracks from their earliest album… This was indeed a celebration of the young fans, like Bruce said in one of the interviews. To watch Maiden perform songs that you’d never otherwise see or hear them perform in the year 2008 – that’s 30 years of Hardcore Heavy Metal! The film is just an amazing insight into the lives of these 6 crazy men. And the most amazing thing is, it doesn’t go into being a documentary about Iron Maiden, their history. It’s just 6 guys playing heavy metal like they always have, taking it like they always do… with, of course, a few rounds of golf and beer in the middle.

The most amazing bit in the film was their tour of Latin America. As Bruce was talking about their experience in Columbia, it reminded me of the concert in Moscow in 1991. The concert arena was surrounded by the army who whisked the people of all their belongings before the concert to ensure a ’safe’ and ‘non-violent’ concert… Non-violent, and I don’t know what the army was doing there. One of the guys in Columbia said, “these guys are just against heavy metal”. That was the most amazing moment… It just said so much about how nobody understands the power of music as opposed to the power of the State, the Religion, the Army and all of those authoratitive symbols that we’re surrounded by. There was a Columbian priest by the name of Father Iron Maiden who had 162 Maiden tattoos on his body. Amazing, isn’t it, how in a country like Columbia where there’s a crazy tumultuous state of politics, nobody understands the need for music and curbs it… and in the middle of it all you find Father Iron Maiden preaching sermons of Maiden songs…. \m/

The response to Iron Maiden in Latin America was just so amazing, I felt like going to Latin America for a Maiden concert. The film brings out one really relevant point, although there’s also a literal mention of it in Bruce’s interview in the film. Music is like a cult for these guys, it’s almost like they’re fighting to win a football match, it’s everything that takes them away from all the political disarray. And to have Iron Maiden perform is like a blessing, especially if the band was banned for coming because of suspected ‘Satanic influences’ in their music. Every crowd in every Latin American country they went to could be heard singing… Ole ole ole ole… Maiden! Maiden!… What a frenzy… And the swarm that welcomed these guys in Chile.

It’s crazy how nothing else really connects us that deep, as music does. Generation after generation goes crazy after Iron Maiden… Heavy metal re-invents itself, but Maiden just stays where it is. Ask any heavy metal fan – from now, or 25 years back – and they’ll tell you Iron Maiden is still the best!

Up the Irons!!

P.S. – and it still will remain… a situation where there were only 8 people in the movie hall

Lizzie of the Lamp

This is the new resident in the house. She found a very cosy place in the lamp that hangs from the ceiling.