In Transit

It’s peculiar though paradoxically perfectly ordinary being in two places at the same time. Seated in an airplane that wings its way over the lands and oceans that separate my daughter’s place from mine, my mind straddles both worlds seamlessly. I look out of my little window and take in the ambiguous light filtering through the layer of clouds, neither here nor there. And I mark the rounds of the routine that typifies her day while anticipating the one that awaits me when I land.

She must have woken up, I think, with a smile. But then I frown, did she get enough sleep? I worry. Did the baby cry or fret or demand to be fed or coddled too often? I hope she’s had time to make her morning chai, sit sipping it at leisure, open the book she’s been trying to read. I hope those pages turn. Unknown to me, my fingers cross.

My husband must have yawned while his bleary eyes followed the Ashes on the TV at home. It mustn’t be easy being alone. But duty had called him back earlier and he had returned willingly, confident that I would do all for our daughter and her family. He will soon lock the doors, switch off the lights, make his way upstairs, browse through his social media one last time before calling it a night. It’s raining heavily, he had told me the last time we spoke. The garden must be that lovely verdant green again, I muse, tender shoots thrusting forth from the palms at the back, the lawn lush once more, wild mushrooms popping up, holding their own until the mali ruthlessly roots them out and tosses them away. The kamini must be in full bloom too, shedding its carpet of white petals every morning, their mild fragrance scenting the air, seeping into the house through the windows, bringing nature into our rooms.

Has she taken her medicines? Had breakfast? She’s a young mother, she needs her sustenance, she needs to mend all that her body endured, heal well. I hope that the day ahead isn’t too tiring for her, too demanding. Her husband shares in almost everything she does, he is as much a hands-on parent to our granddaughter as her. But, I know, for a mother it is different. What she needs to do, what she wants to do, what is expected of her, all must be weighing on her mind and body. I wish that I had stayed longer, helped her more.

I turn away from the window and nod absentmindedly at the flight attendant who has brought me my meal tray. I look at the food, my fork listlessly shuffles its way around, some mouthfuls make their way in, the rest lies uneaten. However palatable, my heart is not in food.

I think of my mother and how she flitted between four homes, her three daughters’ and her own, the one we claimed for ourselves too. Setting the tea to brew in her kitchen and wondering if we had had ours. Watching a movie on her TV and thinking of us all, how we had watched it with her when we had been young, still in her full nest. Listening rapt to a much-loved song on the radio and hoping that I had tuned in to it as well.

My daughter loves music too, passionately. Her favourites resonate through the house while she is occupied in chores. Then stealing away some time for herself she tunes in to her tanpura and goes through the paltas that she has been taught. Her Kedar is so lilting, I remember with a smile of satisfaction. So neatly yet sweetly structured. How beautifully she moves from ma to pa, tacitly enveloping the ga. I smile again.

My mother loved listening to me sing. She would sit across me in my music room, ask for this Raga, that thumri, another bhajan. I would comply sometimes. At other times I would shake off her requests impatiently. No, no, I would exclaim. I am not in the mood for that or then this is not the time for it, some other day, maybe. And she would quietly fold up her farmaish within herself, mutely accepting whatever my moulting mood summoned, with not even a whit of rancour or disappointment. I wish I had complied more.

He loves the charm of old Hindi film songs. I had sent him my playlist of Lata and Rafi and he sits listening to them, no doubt remembering how he had heard them first when growing up, when in school and college, then again with me, luxuriating in the priceless treasures I had gathered in that speciously simple keyword, playlist. Lag ja gale, the ethereal Lata sings and he sighs. The song that we both love, that incarnates love.

The flight attendant is offering dessert, I accept gratefully. I taste it, then eat some more. I wish they could have tasted it too. The view outside my window gets blurred. Has the light faded even more? My hand goes up in reflex to wipe away the treacherous tears that escape. I look around, hoping nobody has seen them, how embarrassing that would be. No, everyone else is similarly wrapped in their own secluded worlds. I nod, understanding. How discreetly private we all are, yet how we go through the same gamut of emotions, the same yearnings and fulfillments, fiercely intent on hiding them from the eyes of the world. The world that has seen it all, known it all, lived through it all and will live through it again and again. And yet clothe it in virgin newness when we experience it ourselves.

My eyelids shutter down, though the eyes go on seeing. Remembering, repeating. My mind feeds them visions and they oblige willingly. The tears roll on, I brush them off in exasperation. Why this weakness, this mushiness? It isn’t the end of the world. I will be with them again, soon. This isn’t forever. I am stern with myself.

Yes, but partings are so difficult, aren’t they? I remember the flight to their place, how eager we were, how excited. The baby was to be born. How tense we were while in the waiting room, our daughter wheeled away for a last-minute C section, my doctor husband experiencing the nerve-wracking anxiety that his patients’ relatives go through. How elated we were when the nurse had scurried to tell us of our beautiful granddaughter, how we had beamed and then laughed in joy when she said that she had cried lustily, filling her tiny lungs with an abundance of precious air. How copiously I had wept in relief when I learned that our daughter was doing fine. How I had rushed to meet them, planting a kiss on her forehead, waiting to tell her to go ahead and sleep, that I’d got it all now. How hungrily I had lifted that precious bundle and how overawed I had felt on seeing how tiny she was. Aai, I had silently called out to my mother, she’s here, ga, she sleeps soundly in my arms. She has journeyed long and well. She too needs her rest.

I browse through her photos on my phone, asleep, awake, smiling, dressed in this and in that. She will be so much bigger and older and smarter when I see her next. I sigh and put my phone away. Sleep eludes me yet. I quietly hum an old Lata lullaby, the one that I sang to her, that Aai had loved. Slowly my eyes grow heavier, my voice fades, I drift off into sleep.

I awake to darkness. I stumble out of my seat and go up to ask for a cup of tea. I pull out my book from my bag, settle down again and start reading. The words barely move, my eyes flicker over the same half-phrase again and again, I feel as though I’ve lost my powers. I shake my head vigorously, will myself to concentrate and am soon immersed in Virginia Woolf’s stream of consciousness. Such brilliant, acute perception, noting every aspect of the natural world and the human, recording in exquisite detail every facet of every thought and emotion that men and women are capable of. Writing as fluently as the mind travels, moving fluidly from this memory to that realization to the other question to the registering of yet another experience. Transiting from this to that as in a smooth glide, like our meend in music, like a bird taking off softly from this branch with barely a flap of its wings and perching again on that one there, its plumes caressing the intervening air gently, smoothly. Yes, that’s what transits are about. Carrying disparate points and separate spaces within them, joining them in an uninterrupted arc of sensation and sentiment, as if all naturally belonged together, flowing into each other. I am lulled again into slumber.

They bring us breakfast and I discover my appetite returning. The clouds outside have thickened. Monsoon! The sky is like a puffed-up blanket of white and grey, the first inklings of my land coming up. Turbulence rocks the craft. The pilot sends out his customary message requesting us to sit tight with our belts fastened. After the dry weather in California, this will be a welcome change, I think. My heart yearns to hear the pitter-patter of raindrops, see them wash my garden, tiny rivulets forming and flowing about. I wonder where I had left my umbrella. I smile, shaking my head. There is still time for that.

We land. My motherland. My heart fills again.

Immigration, baggage, customs, all go by in a whirl. I wheel my trolley out and see that familiar face, his eyes searching, waiting. I nearly skip my way forward. I see him smiling. I am too.

In the car on the way home, I fish out my phone from my purse and message our daughter. She calls within minutes. Her voice fills the air, I hear the baby gurgling, her dog barking. All well here, she comforts me, we miss you though. I comfort her too, tell her that we will be back soon, until then we will talk on the phone. Yes, she agrees. That must suffice for now, I know.

I turn to my husband. I know that it will be well. My torn heart will be whole again, that I will be happy, busy again. After some mandatory moping, of course, I concede and then grin. He looks quizzically at me. Yeah, yeah, good you came, I tell him. He is happy too.

Whatever I may do, think, imagine, write, sing, create, with whatever intensity and absorption and passion, I know that it doesn’t compare to what I felt back there, that agonised flux, that writhing restlessness. I know my mother felt it all too, I know many mothers and fathers have experienced it over and over again. It’s like a precious baton of love and responsibility that we carry forward from one generation to the next, knowing that this movement and all it encompasses will never cease. It’s an exquisite amalgam of all the sentience that has been accumulating in us from time immemorial, all in an ongoing stream of our human consciousness.

The car rolls forward along the Expressway to Pune. The verdure outside is drenched in rejuvenating rains. The clouds roll along above us. Monsoon fed waterfalls cascade down the Ghats, all so picturesque. We chat, we break for tea, we return to the road. We think ahead, we plan ahead. We begin listing what we must take with us the next time we visit her.

But there is time for that, I know. For now, I turn home again.