It is 1:00 AM. He sits alone in the center of a large room and wonders what it all means. He is glad to have found solitude at the end of an uneventful day, although the hour is a bit late and he feels drowsy.
It has been a tumultuous day. So have the past few days. He seems lost, hopeless and helpless. He finds hope in the fact that his patience is running out and if this goes on for a few more days his lividity will be replaced by a cool indifference to the proceedings of his fate.
"Fate is mere hindsight", he remembers himself proudly proclaiming to his college mates busy appeasing Lady Luck with chants and chains. Yet he feels chained by his own helplessness in the face of hopeless adversity now. He wonders if things would have turned out any different if his reactions were any different to all that life has thrown at him.
He realizes that he cannot get out by fighting harder because he is not in a fight. Or at least, he knows little who he is fighting. His natural reaction is to take what life has thrown at him and complain about it. "If life gives you lemons, notice how bitter the seeds are", he remembers his witty jibe, his rephrasing of a smart televison advert.
He gets up and picks up the phone. It is late at night. But airports work all night.
"When does the next flight to Bangkok leave?"
"6:30 AM, sir"
"Thank you", he says and hangs up.
He realizes he hasn't inquired about the cost of travel. Makes a guess that it must not be more than a few lakhs of rupees. Nothing that his shiny new credit card can't cover. He looks around and picks up all the clothes that he had washed the previous day. Stuffs them in the backpack that he finds lying in a corner.
He wonders if they'll let an unshaven, sickly man in shorts get into an international flight. The challenge is not the flight, but the airport he realizes. It is more likely the security at the airport will scrutinize his appearences more closely than the flight crew with plastic smiles stuck to their faces. He wonders what a flight attendant will tell him of the frustrations of her job if he were to meet her at a bar.
Meeting a flight attendant at a bar. That would be one hell of an
achievement, something he could boast about for at least a couple of years were he still 5 years younger. But of course, he would not in the least be interested in her frustration with the job then. He would probably be scampering around for a camera to prove his adventurous escapade is not all glib fantasy.
Is this what is called maturity, he wonders. His reverie is broken by an auto driver's honking. He realizes that he has walked a bit from home, down to main road that leads to the airport. He is glad that the auto found him. This might well turn out to be a lucky day.
"Airport, Terminal 3" he says.
"300" says the auto driver. He doesn't bother arguing over the price.
The auto driver is a meek man. There are pictures of deities and deified men within. Filmstars and cricketers. His thoughts move to the retirement of a cricketing great and he wonders who will come in to bat at number 3 in the next test match that India plays.
The policeman at the airport entrance inspects him with the suspicion reserved for men with long beards. He lets him through, seemingly half heartedly but is helpful enough to tell him that he must head left for his flight. He gives the guard a perfunctory nod and marches on.
The boarding call for the flight is another 2 hours away. He chooses to read a book over catching some sleep. "Beyond the beautiful forevers" by Katherine Boo. He reads dispassionately through the struggles of Mumbai's underbelly for the basic necessities of life. He looks at the man at the coffee counter and wonders how it must feel to wear a cap all day.
He is now tired. Physically in addition to all the mental strain. He leans back and looks at the little airport world that surrounds him, a microcosm of humanity with a multitude of two legged apes of all ethnicities scampering around. "Sheeple" comes to mind.
"Sheeple", he says out aloud leaning back against a pillar that is behind his seat. And a comic strip comes to mind. From xkcd. A train with a bunch of travellers, each thinking "Sheeple" about everyone else. Sheeple. The word has a strange ring to it.
A skinny girl hurrying past him with baggage twice her size stumbles. As she regains her balance and her carefully crafted gait, she looks at him. No, she seems to be looking and judging him. It is a "Sheeple" look.
The hunter becomes the hunted. The observer becomes the experiment. The lab rat adjusts his spectacles and realizes that there are only lab rats in a room filled with incomprehensible machinery.
He smiles. Gets up. Picks up his backpack and heads back out. The cool Delhi air seems crisp and refreshing. He hails down an auto and decides it is time to go home.
