Wanderlust.

I am a pensive person. I think a LOT. I overthink, I day dream, I wonder, I fore see, and I fantasize. I have been flying a lot lately and that gives me more time to let my imagination and thoughts run amok. As if, thinking a lot in general wasn’t enough, I have been blessed with more opportunities to let my imagination run wild. Lately, I have taken a fascination to penning my thoughts in a free flow manner. I don’t stop them. I just start typing, pouring every facet of my emotion into words, not caring the least about how it turns out. It gives me peace of mind.

I have been visiting airports often off late and notice so many people rushing to make their flight on time, and I have seen more number of take offs and landings than I ever have in my lifetime. Being in airports and in flights, gazing out into the vast expanse of white/blue gives me a rush. It gives me a mild rush of adrenaline knowing I that I am waiting to board my flight, knowing that I would be cruising so many feet up in the air. I cannot explain the feeling, but I feel an odd sense of bliss when I travel by flights, especially long-haul ones. True it is physically grueling, sitting in a place for hours together, with the same air being circulated, body swelling from the retention of water, dehydration and the occasional getting up to stretch/ using the privy. But for some reason, no matter how much I grumble, my affinity for flying trumps these challenges. Maybe it is because of the solitude, the adventure of travelling alone, the opportunity to do just what I want, completely cut off from the rest of the world for that duration of time.

See I am an emotionally intelligent person. But I am also fiercely practical in somethings that my family and the society may not agree with. No matter what, it gives me an odd sense of satisfaction when I can back most things with science/philosophy/rational thinking. All these things I mentioned above, about this rush that I get when it comes to flying, what is the root cause for it? Surely, it cannot just be the solitude it offers or the fact that it lets my imagination flow free? Then I did what I do best. I thought. And the reason behind it, dawned upon me. You see, I believe that whatever we do in life for the first time/ first few times, sets a pedestal for how we feel about it in the future. I am basically referring to first impressions. A simple example, growing up, our parents force feed us with vegetables, in hopes of keeping us healthy. I am sure we all have one vegetable or food item that makes us scrunch up our face. For me, it is ladies finger. I cannot stand the vegetable! I believe that we associate our liking/distaste for things, based on how we felt while we did those things. The negative/positive feelings associated with them, almost automatically triggers a preconceived reaction. Like the fact that I have never liked milk in its pure form even as a child and up until today, I wouldn’t drink a plain glass of milk unless it is flavored in some manner. Similarly, I realized that I have quite a bit of affinity towards flying for the one reason that made me feel good about it, the way it started which was with FAMILY. Let me elaborate.

As my flight this morning had just taken off and was cruising at an altitude of 15,000 feet, I was peeking out the window and was slapped with a wave of nostalgia. I had a "Ratatouille" moment, where the food critic took a bite of the ratatouille prepared by the rat and almost immediately zoned out into his past. Similarly, I was looking at the snow covered sleepy towns down below, and slipped into a flashback of me as a four-year-old sitting next to my mother on a flight, by the window.

You see, when I was around that age, we used to live in Saudi Arabia. It was mum, dad and me. My father would rarely accompany us on our visits back to India, due to work. Albeit, I doubt there were many visits. You see back then, travelling by flights overseas for a middle-class family was an expensive affair. My father had procured employment in Saudi and traveled before us, possibly to get the place setup. My mother and I soon followed pursuit, and that was probably my first official travel where I was old enough to realize that something was happening.

Before I get into the specifics of where I am going with this, let me confirm that I am someone who is easily distracted and more easily bored. Thankfully enough, I was never a cranky toddler, in that I wouldn’t cry or throw hissy fits just because I was sleepy or hungry. On the contrary, this enclosure that we were travelling in, increasingly fascinated me. There were gorgeous ladies all dolled up, warmly welcoming us aboard this fancy place. I was a kid and naturally got the window seat. I mentioned I was not annoying in that I wouldn’t cry and throw fits. But I was annoying all right! My mother will attest to that as soon as she reads this. I was a different kind of annoying. Growing up, food has always been a big part of my life and I am a sucker for all things fancy. Let me explain before I come across as a pompous prat. See in India where I grew up, ladies would usually carry their children on their hips while they fed them from a bowl/plate using their hands. I was a tough kid. Exactly the opposite to what I am now, I would never eat. My mother and grand mother had the hardest time getting me to eat. They would have to walk two or three blocks just to get me interested in the happenings around so that while I was distracted, they’d sneak a bite into my mouth.

That being said, food was a good distraction on the flight. They were always so neatly arranged in tiny trays, tiny cups provided for coffee/tea/pop, and of course, I would get the kid's meal. That meant a bag of goodies! An actual bag of goodies, with a cute kid sized knapsack usually containing a bag of chips (either in the shape of alphabets/numbers), a juice box, candy bars and a coloring book. I would happily eat the meal provided to me with no necessity for coercion of any sort from my mother. You see more than the usual cows and dogs and buses on the roads used to pique my interest in food, I found colorful enclosures, interesting views from windows and people more encouraging for me to complete my meal. Clearly my restlessness and constant “Fernweh” started off very at a very early age.

Coming back to what I meant when I said I was an annoying toddler, it was crankiness in a torturous sense. The moment I boarded the flight, bombardment with three repetitive questions would begin and my mother’s sanity would be put to test.

1.       “Ma, when will the airhostess come?”

2.       “Ma, when will the airhostess give food?”

3.       “Ma, when will Madras (Chennai) come?”

God only knows, how that woman put up with me.

For some reason, even at that age, I would carefully stow this goody bag away eagerly waiting to share it with my cousins back home, in India. It was a big deal as the excitement was two – fold. One being that the youngest cousin was arriving from a far-off place and the family was reuniting and two, goodies from abroad! The three of us (Divya, Kavya and me) would open this goody bag and share it with glints of excitement in our eyes and hearts. To this day, we share laughs about it as we walk down memory lane.

We wouldn’t travel often as I mentioned. It would probably be a once in a year affair. The eager faces of my cousins and relatives awaiting my mother’s and my arrival at the airport would send me into a frenzy of excitement. Sadly, my mother, the poor woman would face the brunt of this excitement. The moment we cleared customs and picked up our bags, we’d rush out into the arms of our loved ones, waiting eagerly, looking forward to the vacation that lay ahead, showering us with tight hugs and a hundred kisses. 

I am smiling with a cheeky tear, threatening to fall from my eye as I'd just relived these fond memories while narrating and establishing my affinity for flying. All that started with a warm memory etched deep in my heart, contributes till this date towards my fascination for flying. I know I don’t have family that welcomes me each time that l land somewhere. But this feeling, lingering in my subconscious fuels my love for it and makes me feel at home while I fly.  I am glad that I have let my thoughts run free here. I have been itching to say some thing about these travels and I finally found the words for it. I love my mother for introducing me to the world of travelling and I think I always carry a part of her with me wherever I travel and every now and then, when a sly memory creeps in to my head of her oh so beautiful face, patiently answering my relentless questions, I yearn with an ache to go back to that part of my life, relive it or redo it or maybe even watch me grow and laugh/shake my head disapprovingly at all the silly things I did, all the choices I made, though my intuition pointed me exactly in the opposite direction. Its funny how something as simple as flying to someplace on a plane, can trigger such huge emotions and thoughts and make you shudder from the after math of the hurricane, that is nostalgia.

Food for thought.