Ananya’s family stood by the window at the Mumbai airport. They scanned all passengers coming out to look for her. They had been waiting there for the last 2 hours now.
It was exactly a year back that Ananya had gone to NY to pursue a degree in writing at New York University. Ananya’s family had come to drop her off at the airport then - her parents, uncle, aunt and her 3 brothers. Ananya’s eyes were moist as she saw her family for the last time through the window at the Mumbai airport. Visitors were not allowed inside the airport after 26/11. Over the last few years terror attacks had risen so much that it was easier to remember them by the dates they happened on.
As she moved towards the security check area her family followed her from window to window, before she went out of sight. They were not going to see her for at least a year. She was going away from her family for the first time. She was nervous as she was flying for the first time. As she waited in the security check queue, she wondered whether her family was still waiting outside. They were still there hoping to catch a glimpse of her. The image of her family waiting at the window was going to stay with her till she sees them again.
“Someday, I will be sitting in that flight”, Ananya used to say pointing at the blinking lights in the sky. If not impossible, it surely was a distant possibility. Ananya was from a sleepy little town called Belgaum on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Getting a job in any MNC in Bangalore was a dream cherished by many. But Ananya wanted to be a writer. She wanted to see the world.
Ananya read a few pages of a pirated copy of the “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” while seated near the gate area. She was a big Harry Potter fan and had read all the books numerous times. She had won all the “Harry Potter” quizzes in her college. Ananya had requested for a window seat while booking the flight. She always wanted to look at the world she knows from a great height. After boarding the flight, she played with the seat belt for a while and figured out how to fasten it.
The plane started to move and was in the air soon. Ananya looked out of the window and the world below her began to shrink very quickly. The world below looked like the scaled-down building models she had seen in her father’s office. A random mess of high rise buildings, slums, cars, railway tracks and people on one side and the vast blue Arabian Sea on the other. The plane pierced the clouds and all she could see was dense clouds. “The Gods must be living here”, she thought. All the mythological TV series she had seen showed the Gods living amongst the clouds.
During her 16 hour journey Ananya had seen deserts, mountains, rivers, vast farmlands and the never ending ocean. Unlike travelling by car or train, looking out of a flight window she couldn’t see any milestones and borders. The world was never made with borders – she remarked. She kept guessing the name of the region she was flying above. At nights, the earth and sky became one and all she could see was dark space with stars everywhere.
Life in New York was very fast – and a big change from the laid back life she was living in her small town in India. Nevertheless, she left her windows open to the fresh air of experiences this country had to give. After a year, Ananya got a chance to visit her family for the summer vacations. With the same excitement she had experienced a year back – she quickly packed her bags and before she could realize - she was already waiting for her bags in the baggage claim area at Mumbai airport.
She scanned the windows of the airport to find her family. There they were, her entire family, holding bouquets and chocolate boxes in their hands. Nothing much had changed. Their eyes were still moist, except that they all were smiling now.
For a year she had become their window to a different country and culture on the other side of the globe. They had become her windows to the lovely world she had left behind.
