Back

Airports are the only places which have become constants in my life. Living dual lives in cities tucked away in two different corners of the country, change has become a part of me. The chic flyovers give way to the potholed roads through that one journey made from one airport to another. At times, I feel like Ila from Amitav Ghosh’s “Shadow Lines”-I begin to understand her confusion at having to switch lives as she traverses a journey connected only by two airports. Places condition a life. Thus, with places, people change and lives change. Coping with changes are always difficult, especially when these changes are thrust upon you suddenly. But then, somehow, you live on. Airports become the only places which stand looking similar, even in different places. They, thus, become the only constant tile in the shifting mosaics of one’s life.They say, the only thing constant in life is change.
Things at home have changed, people have changed...or maybe, I have.

I had met this girl when she was three-I used to pull her cheeks really hard till she cried. There were times when someone had to put some antiseptic on her cheeks after the session of rigorous cheek pulling was over. I saw her grow up-from the chubby quiet little girl to a woman of words. She spoke with a conviction unmatched by anyone else. We had walked the same path for quite sometime-refusing to let change come in the way. But today, finally, change has brought down the house of cards we built and tried to guard against the winds of change.

I feel stupid and wronged. But maybe, even I have wronged.

Someday, after years of silence, a stranger will find this piece of writing and read it. All that will remain are these words-no masterpiece, but just a string of disjoint words.
For now, I move-just move without a meaning. I forget her. I forget that there was someone I walked this road with...till we forced each other out of our orbits. But somewhere, sometime I look at a shooting star and wish...wish that that long forgotten person would forgive me. Once again, forgive me. Forgive me for making it my tragedy.

P.S:huge problem with formatting