By Aditya Dev Sood
Brownian motion at a macro-scale. That's what my working week feels like these days. On Monday I flew from Delhi to Ahmedabad, the next day to Bangalore, a couple of days later to Patna via Calcutta. And now, after a tense hour's delay in Patna, while this decrepit Air-India plane was late arriving into that one-room box of an airport, we're finally off and away. We'll land in Delhi with just the right sliver of time for me to catch the only direct flight to Goa today. We'll be going for a friend's 40th birthday bash on the beach this holiday weekend.
There's hardly anyone on the flight, but they've bunched us up in some artificial pattern near the middle of the fuselage. The whole thing is like a too-vivid dream from my childhood, from the yucky yellow-orange of the seats to the squat, curvy stewardesses in saris that remind me of my teachers in elementary school. They're coming around now with a meal cart. Sir, veg or non-veg for your breakfast? shakahari, the guy next to me says, and then leans over me to receive his tray with shaking, uncertain hands. I'm thinking I'll have the parantha-s as well.
How does one open this, he asks me, holding up the micro-package of jam. I demonstrate by separating the aluminum layer from the plastic layer of my own packet and slowly pulling them apart. He's still going at it several times before I offer him my own packet. Now he's got the same problem with the butter serving, but instead of struggling with it he just offers it to me to open for him. I go back to my parantha-s, when a few minutes later he offers me his ketchup packet. I put my parantha down, wipe my greasy fingers and try to find the entry tear in the packet. The slit I'm making curves away from the pulpy body of the packet towards its edge, making no wound in the sac of ketchup. I hand it back to him wearily, knowing I won't be able to do any better. nahin hua bhai, kya karen? He puts it back down on his tray despondently.
Now he turns to me holding up the fruit cup, and I'm wondering if he's for real. I mean it's just a plastic airplane service cup, aged and flecked and speaking of that misplaced parsimony that only Air-India still excels in, but elegantly taped up all round with saran-wrap. iska kya hai, bus phad dijiye, I tell him. He looks at the object like its form, meaning and logic are only now becoming clear to him, his mind is reading it, and his whole body nods, yes yes, I can just tear the plastic and get to the fruit inside!