Airborne

Experience travelling by air is as unique as any other travelling experience. Sometimes it is the excitement of a new airport and other times simply the exoticism of the place. And sometimes, just the very feeling of being seated in and 'experiencing' an airplane.

I love the sensation of the airplane lifting off, the grr-grrr-ing as the wheels are withdrawn into the plane's tummy while it simultaneously gains lift. The same way I love the feeling of the plane touching down: the feeling of butterflies fluttering inside your stomach, the gentle closing down of your eardrums and then them popping open upon swallowing, the grrr-grrrr-ing again as the wheels come back out. I love the sensation of passing by the sun, seemingly looking straight at it during the day, and the moon by night. One a beautiful disk of gold and the other a sphere of grey-splotched white. Looking at these somewhat closer than while on ground makes you sort of understand why civilizations of the past found them worshipful. Powerful. And why poets to this day dedicate stanzas to their beauty and use their effect to personify human emotion.

The weather on Tuesday was forecasted to be cloudy and rain was on the cards; turbulence during the flight was expected.

The plane cleared Pakistani airspace without much disturbance but passing over the Gulf waters brought some ups and downs. All of a sudden we found ourselves jolted up, and the interior suddenly became darker than earlier on. A strange fog became visible through the window where before the sunlight has passed through. The lady beside me (we were toward the window-side) literally jumped into the air as much as her fastened seatbelt would allow and then began reciting something under her breath, a prayer for salvation and to keep away from any impending mishap. I should have done the same, my mind kept telling me: all those little precautions and dua's mama had taught me came to mind,  all those episodes of Air Crash Investigation I had watched on NatGeo began a replay in my mind's eye. But I was just too excited to recite anything, too caught up in the moment: for we were passing right through the clouds themselves! The total excitement as we flew through the white cotton looking so yummy it made you want to reach out and eat, like cotton candy. The constant up-and-down motion of the airplane only added to the excitement.

It felt heroic to be part of such turbulence, sort of brave to think of myself as a 'survivor' of something dangerous. The feeling that this was how the story of life had ended for many people in countless air crashes as the pilots lost control of the airplane. Maybe I should be feeling guilty for feeling this way in second-person tense. But I don't.

I understood so much of God and belief in those few seconds.

For, those moments in the cloud were, simply, beautiful.