December 25, 2001 (idea)

It started at Level 7 of Hongkong airport. Sitting on a blue chair between boarding gates 60 and 61 in my blue jeans and blue sweater waiting for morning I realized at 12:00 am that my Christams has started already and will last for a fairly long time.

There are no transit hotels at Hongkong airport¹ ... so too bad I arrived there at 10 in the night from Delhi and had to be around till 2:00 PM next day for my flight for San Francisco. I have to just be around the vacant airport.

Hongkong airport shuts itself down and goes to sleep at 11 in the night. This was rather surprising to me, I assumed all international airports open 24 hours a day. I looked around to see every shop, every TV, every escalator, every elevator shut down. People started vanishing too. Soon I was the only soul around ... I could yell and run and sing songs loudly and no one would be disturbed.

Instead I just silently sat in one of the chairs motionless, thoughtless. For a few moments there were no thoughts, I was blank. Then they came ... like a flood ... like rioteers. The past month passed before my eyes in a zip with some faces, some sounds, some moments, some laughters, some sights more visible than others, more familiar, more registered, more tangible than others. Like the life before the eyes of a dying man, last 30 days of my life passed before my eyes, like a life lived and ended. Like I've died and am travelling to another world, the afterworld. Is this how it actually happens? Is this how one dies? Have I been a good man? a good son? Have I been just? never broke a heart? Have I been honest? Would I go to heaven? ...

When you are this self-reflective and tired and confused and lonely, everything is a metaphor. Everything - your self-reflection, your tiredness, confusion and loneliness. 'There should be a reason I'm undergoing these silent lonely hours standing in middle of my origin and my destination', I thought to myself...

Is that how we are born? Tired, confused, with fading memories of our past lives...?

I spent my time writing for a minute or two, then reading - a newspaper left by some passenger on a seat, a couplet by Rumi from this book I was carrying with me. And walking. Walking all around. Walking like I'm going somewhere ... ('You walk too much', one of my buddies told me over a coffee during this trip) ... walking like I'm searching something. After a while I got too tired and slept on one of the chairs.

The morning, and people and shops and life with it, came and I saw it was time for me to board the 11 hour long flight to SFO. It'll start at 2:00 PM on 25th from here but reach at 9:00 AM 25th morning California time. My Christmas will rewind when the plane crosses the international dateline.

The plane got off the ground at the right time ... I looked at the Hongkong city skyline at a distance - life goes on as usual for hundreds of thousands of people living here as I transition back to my life in west ... as I change back to this guy I am in west ... taking Credit cards, Wide roads, hot water for granted.

The bottle green ocean seemed lined carefully with straight lines by expert hands where it met land. The small islands in the ocean seemed lined with a nervous dynamic white thread of sea froth.

The ocean was covered with a layer of something thick ... like cream covers milk after boiling. You could see tracks of ferries ships boats waterscooters long behind them and while the cream covering the ocean tried to reclaim these tracks it seemed to have formed a wedge in the water, like tyre tracks in sand ... 'what is this?', I wondered, 'froth? oil? something natural or man made? Did man do this to ocean or is it something natural?'

The downtown came in view behind the mountains ... the tall buildings looking like architect models, COSCO building, then an all glass building loosely looking like empire state building, that building which looks like its made of triangles ... roads shining like fresh snail tracks. Artificial beaches were visible at lands end - the nets fitted a little distance into the sea to limit the span of these places were clearly visible too. Man has done the stragest things to this planet...good ones, bad ones ... sculpted it, damaged it...

I closed the 2 window panes besides my seat and closed my eyes to adjust them to lesser light inside. The glare from view outside had blinded me.

'Merry Christmas', the stewardess said and handed me a tiny 'Party Mix' pouch. I took Apple Juice with it. I do it everytime I fly, take apple juice as my first drink ... for no particular reason, its a practice I have subconsciously imbibed. 'The Princess Diary' starts playing on TVs ... it's based in SFO ... I smile like it's 'my' city they are talking about ... I don't even live there ...

Take a little star and keep it in your pocket ...
Never let it fade away ...
Take a little star and keep it in your pocket ...
Keep it for a rainy day ...

After lunch (What is this with plastic knife but silver forks? sheesh), I looked out and we were flying over the castles of clouds. Deep blue pacific ocean peeked from below them ... I'm returning 'home' ... from 'home' ... I close my eyes. Everything is alright ...