The Airport: Scene 1

Airports and I, we share a love hate relationship. Every time I touch the airport, I’m filled with a strange rush of excitement and anticipation. When you think of the surprises that lie ahead, it’s hard not to love the place for what it offers.

For a girl who has grown up on a steady diet of rom-coms, I firmly believe airports are the best place to kickstart your love story. Have a good look at my profile. Favourite movies? When Harry met Sally, A Lot like Love and Hum Tum. And that is just as much as I love airports. Not to mention, 68.4373% (Yes, I made the figure up) of these romcoms end with one of the actors confessing their undying love for the other, at the airport, minutes before departure.

What do I hate about airports? Three things. The checking, the checking and the checking. How did I forget the long lines? For a person who hates standing in a line when there are five people ahead, waiting for thirty of them to move, is a real task. On top of that parents insist on travelling with their little kids, who insist on crying for no particular reason. They make me hate the world so much. Even more when they stand behind me, grabbing my ass at regular intervals.

Don’t get me started on my own parents. Their worst fear is being trapped in a foreign country with no Indian food to sustain them. Vegetarian food to be precise. So while we’re waiting in the line, they start having in depth conversations about the different ready to make MTR packets and lolas (Sindhi pancakes) they have carried. All of this happens very loudly, by the way, while I stand there wondering why the ground won’t open to swallow me up.

This time round, I’m travelling without my folks and my excitement is contagious. The times I have travelled without them, there has always been a friend. Let me tell you about this friend of mine. Her parents compete with mine in the paranoia department. When we were fifteen and travelling without them for the first time, they insisted on informing the airport staff so they’d look after us. I’m not going to divulge the details of what followed, for my own sake.

I’m the kind of person, who continues to sit whilst the train arrives, and gets up once everybody else has alighted. Coming early to the airport, in my opinion, is one the most pointless things in the world. This time round, I’m so excited, I’ll probably insist on reaching five hours in advance.

The thought of browsing through duty free shops and bookstores in my pretty sailor striped ballerinas and black high waist skirt seems rather exhilarating. Have I told you about my new Zara bag? Let’s just say she is stylish and fabulous. I can’t wait to walk around the airport with her. And then sit by the pretty little airport cafe sipping lattes. For as long as time will permit me.

(To be continued.........)

Quarter life crisis and sexy-sexy (non-existent) boyfriends!

My pumpkin pies!

I think Quarter life crisis has struck me bad! While it's obviously one of the worst things to happen, a teeny tiny part of me, loves how filmy it makes my life sound. Well, Chic-flickish to be precise. So grab a bowl of popcorn and listen to me rant rather dramatically about why the feeling of dumpey-ness has been shamelessly following me around.

Well, I used to think I was the 'girl with the plan'. I'm suddenly not so sure anymore. If I don't spend the rest of my life writing, my soul will die and disintegrate. But if I spend my entire life only writing and nothing else, then my self worth with die and disentegrate. I will wake up every morning, feeling like a useless, worthless, potato of a person who has done nothing. Achieved nothing! So I have a long list of other things that I simply have to do. But the list is so long that I don't know how I'm going to do all of it. If I pay more attention to one, I'll feel like I'm neglecting the other. If I try to do the thing I'm neglecting, there will be some fifty other things biting me slowly at the back of my head leading to a serious cause of mental explosion. And if I try to do justice to all of them, my entire being will die and disintegrate. All that and more before I'm old enough to suffer from mid-life crisis!

Omg! This system! So much pressure! I don't even know what PG program I am going to do next year. Or which Universities I should be looking at. Should I even be doing a PG program next year or should I jump to join the first company that offers me an amazing job? Should I work and then study? Study and then work? Or should I work, study and handle being a bag-wali side by side?

What about money? Will I make enough to live the life of a splurgina? Will I find happiness in whatever I do? Will I be healthy at the same time? Or will I find a desk job that swells me to the size of a char bacho wali ma? Will I find a hot-as-hell boyfriend? Will I move in with him or get married right away? Will I find a sexy-sexy husband or will I have to depend on my folks to hook me up with a rich balding guy who'll throw a lavish wedding in return for pressing his feet for the rest of my life and running towards him with a glass of water everytime he screams Lajo-Lajo(or whatever shady name he'll come up with) ?

So as of now, I basically feel like the dumpey protagonist, who is sitting on an arm chair wearing pink sweatpants, stuffing herself with her 48th bowl of chocolate ice-cream and listening to some very melancholy music, worrying herself sick about how and when and where and if and but , everything will fall into place.

But but but, since it is a chick-flick, everything has to get sorted out no? So let's say the gorgeous actress will wake up to find a swanky pink car in her garage, an appointment letter from Vogue sitting by her bedside and drop dead gorgeous boy, who has climbed in through the window to confess his undying love for her. The two of them will break into song and dance. The heavens will bring forth rain in the hot Summer. Everybody will live happily ever after!


And that my dear friends is the end of my story.
So long!
More wishful thinking later :D