Hoodibabaa

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Topsy turvy

"Mama, plane ulti jaa rahi hai naa?"

I turned right to see the kid and mom in the window seat .
I was in the aisle seat and thankfully there was no fidgety passenger in the middle seat who gets up to urinate thrice in an hour and a half journey .

The aircraft was taxiing for take -off and the mom said "Nahin Nahin ,Teek Chal Rahi hai .Beta bolo , Jai Mata Di" .

"Jai Mata Di" said the kid with all the piousness it could muster .

They kept saying this , many times, loudly , till we were fully air borne .

Their happiness was infectious .It is very rare to meet people so naive in a flight and how nice it is to see people who are very simple and unfeigning !

After a while ,the stewardess gave them a crayon pack and a paper containing a few Cartoons for colouring . I thought that was a very sweet gesture .

The mother would then pick a crayon and show it to the kid and it wud say the colour .

Orange .Brown.Blue .Green .

In that process, she dropped a crayon .I picked it up and tried to befriend the kid by giving it back .The kid hesitated , looked at the mom and hugged her tightly and turned its head to the window .

After every while , it slowly used to turn to my direction to see if i was still offering her the crayon .The moment i extend my hand it would turn again to the window,hugging her mom even closely.

I guess , there is an ethereal beauty attached to the sight of a kid hugging its mother ,for that anybody embracing anybody .

I left the crayon in the middle seat and the kid took it sneakily after a while.

I picked up my Ayn Rand and started reading after that .

The mother and kid were sleeping when i turned to see them once after dinner .

I saw them again at the luggage carousel and the mother smiled at me .

She had a beautiful single studded nose ring and that reminded me of my eighth grade classmate Gayathri who used to wear a similar nose ring .She used to take my bag in the school bus every day .Somehow i feel these nose rings add a motherly dimension to a female irrespective of their age.

When i sat in the taxi to go to Chembur that night i wished i had travelled in a train with them .
In a train, i would have been myself and would have kissed the kid when it was sleeping .

Why do kids look so lovely when they are sleeping ??