Coming Home...

Wellll!!! I have been planning to write this bit ever since I kicked off my magnum opus of a holiday – 3 straight weeks, of sunshine, marriage dos, lazing around, visiting an endless trail of relatives (a duty I had managed to successfully avoid the last time around I visited this almost-forgotten but large part of my universe), and a host of other little things that make a holiday enjoyable…And the alcohol, and how I have stayed away from it, watching instead the ridiculouly funny antics of all my FUTI (Friends Under The Influence). Must say I am enjoying this a whole lot more than me being the clown prince of boozers...

But hey! Let me start at the beginning...

Once inside the flight and safely strapped in, wondering where were these lovely hostesses when I was single (I know, I know, that sounds oh-so-familiar middle aged, chauvinistic, blah blah and loads more such and such…but that’s the thought in all honesty…), I am waiting for THAT moment… THAT moment being the one when the aircraft tears down the runway, its high pitched engine scream gives me an altogether different high… That moment is here now, and I feel like an ancient warrior charging full tilt on a magnificent steed towards battle. I am tempted to let out a Har Har Mahadev or Boliye So Nihaal… Sat Sri Akal, or my own Assamese neo-modern warcry that is in sync with the mood of Assam today – Ahoi Aah Ulai Aah… then I realize there is no enemy to go full tilt at now, just an endless expanse of magnificent serene blue sky with a few tufts of cloud, and I am not on some magnificent steed but an ageing haggard Boeing 737 (which doesn’t speak too well of the state of affairs at Jet Airways, which makes me wonder how on earth they managed to acquire Air Sahara), and I am instantly transformed from death-or-glory-hunting-warrior to Don Quixote…

A long day’s flight later, I am now hovering over Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, Guwahati, engulfed in a massive swath of cloud cover…and go in to land almost unable to see anything…at the last moment, as the kick-in-the-butt effect of the touchdown, I see the lovely green grass alongside the runway… I am home!!!