Thursday, May 8, 2008

Holy Cow!!

Indian Visa = RM175
Return Ticket = RM397
ERL Pass = RM24
Fuel consumption to get everything done = God Knows
Expenses = RM800
Time Lost for Simulator Prep = 6 days
Time to make the decision to go = Seconds
The look on my parents face = Amusing

Seeing Her Again? That's worth my universe.

5 days. India. Delhi. Connought Place. Amritsar. Sri Harmandar Sahib. Guru Arjun Dev Ji Nivas. Chheharta. Miri Piri Academy. 5 days. India. You wake up on board an Airbus A330-300 at 40 000 feet, staring at the emergency pamphlet stamped with the MAS logo. The faces of passengers calm, as they execute emergency procedures. Calm as Hindu cows. Khoya Khoya Chand is playing on the screen. Your headphones are not yet plugged in. You wonder what direction the conversation is taking. You wonder if she still recognizes you. You wonder how you got here in the first place. You wonder.

Thurs night you go to bed, knowing you can afford the ticket price, making up your mind that you want to go. Your last chance, in a long time. You’re not thinking things through. You just know that you want to go. You decide to tell Mataji and Pitaji tomorrow. 7 days later. Thurs morning, you wake up on the 7:20 Shatabdi leaving Delhi for Amritsar. You wonder what she’s going to look like. You wonder if you’ll still look at her the same way. 7 years. You wonder.



7 years. You wait. Why? What had been going through your head? A penny for your thoughts. You wake up every morning and walk past her magnificence, eternal on a wall of memories. Those photographs you took, wrapped in a shawl, like baby Jesus, your feet cold from touching the marble. You talk about the old days, your childhood. Those countless times you paraded around the house with your banaa, demonstrating the use of every shastar like a certified curator of V&A Museum, telling hyperbolic stories of the battles during our Guru’s time. You describe her beauty as something that goes beyond life itself. That awe one holds upon witnessing a miracle. That miracle.

But where the hell have you been?! The growing pains reflecting a Nirvana song echo through your rather short history, that has no trace of ‘believe’, ‘passion’, ‘proof’, in its index. Proof that there was God in your life. You believed in Him, but where was the proof? Your proof? To him? A morning and evening prayer read at top speed and gurdwara programs in between?! That’s what you have to offer? 7 years. Now you have 4 days. You have no idea what you’re looking for. You have no idea what to expect. You are going alone. You are scared shitless. You are going there to find the missing piece, and the one person in your life that helped you realize it was missing, that reminded you, life was waiting.





You put your thoughts down in the Red Bible. That book you’ve carried everywhere for the last 2 years. You look at her picture again, the one slipped in the book’s cover. You wonder how much further you’re going to have to take this. A 5 hour flight, and you don’t sleep. Not a wink. Your mind is racing. Your mind is blank. Your thoughts are like Playdo being stretched in every direction. But they don’t break. They just go on. Your thoughts are empty. Not a trace of history or life in them. You listen to Dreamtheater to calm your nerves. Good album. Good recommendation from the guy at the shop. That movie playing isn’t too bad either. Think I’ll recommend it to Harkiren.

“Cabin Crew, please be seated for landing”. Local time is 21:15. Its 39 degrees Celsius outside. I hope Sounil recognizes me. 2000 feet to touchdown. Here we go.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Lovely post mate....

satsimran said...

true, nice post. but did that person still remember you? hahaha.....

Unknown said...

wow hargobind
the way u describe u missed towards her..wonderful!!!...after reading ur post for a person like which nvr been to india...feels flying to india esspecially to harmandir sahib by the next flight...

fan of your way of writing...

wish to have the same skills!!:p

takecare
satnam