Now you are in Madras...(like alicia keys)

A wailing shrieking bawling toddler kept me up all through the flight from NY to Brussels. I was not the only one who was absolutely cold and shaking with fury. There was a man in front of the seat where the baby was sleeping, and he got up and actually asked the baby to stop. That was how non-stop it was. The captain just finished briefing us about the flying time and the weather, as if we were going out for a stroll in the middle of a flight-'wow, such a lovely wind'; thus started the crying menace, its then that i wanted to ask myself this question: why breed?

As much cold-hearted as I appear, given the fact that all babies are supposed to cry and puke a la shakespeare, I could not understand this need to cry for six bloody hours. Ok, you get hungry for a while, you get uncomfortable for a while after you eat, but what is with the continuous wail? On top of this, Jet airways serves paneer with all your meals. I am pretty sure I had paneer in six different forms, with the same taste, and at the end of the last meal, I would have gladly taken off my shoes and eaten them rather than eat that paneer. My stomach was begging me to stop seeing it, I forced myself to eat it.I had to actually lodge the food down my throat using a fork as a shovel. Not that it was bad, just that, I had to eat the same thing again and again. A little more paneer and I would have started to look for the cows and the farmers responsible for the paneer; a earful of my fury and a mouthful of their paneer.

There was a young boy sitting next to me, who looked a little like me when I was his age-plump, glasses, no etiquette to say thanks when somebody helps with your headset etc. His mother was seated in the front seat with his brother(probably). I know parents can be quite irrational. I mean, they are, aren't they? In the name of being concerned, they do the silliest of things, and embarrass the child throughout his life. Some pride, isn't it? When people ask you, is it your son, the parent beams with the widest smile possible, and says yes! oh, god help us mortals and our attachment to life and its paraphernalia(I have always wanted to use this word, yay). Coming back to the story, she asked the boy to actually go to sleep, when he was wide awake watching some hindi movie. Slowly, 'the please go to sleep' became 'go to sleep beta', 'give me your glasses', 'give them or I'm going to smash every bone in your little face'(ok, that was from me), and the boy handed them over finally. He fell asleep, and he started to snore. Yes, one more reason to keep me awake. Yes, I need to know what sleepless nights are, after working with a jackass of an advisor and bed bugs, now it was the turn of a toddler and a juvenile brat to keep me up. All ages, both the sexes will keep you up at some point in your life, let's just be prepared was the message. Great.

Back in Chennai airport I felt primitive, disconnected, lost, enigmatic, furious, disturbed, dysfunctional and chaotic all at the same time. I was back!Haha, Madras. It took the baggage conveyor 90 minutes to tell me that one of my baggage was missing. I went out of the airport to a blast of hot air, the stink of urine and god knows what else. Truly, I had arrived. The first thing I noticed in my house was-high ceilings! I had forgotten those rooms! Of course, the truly beautiful journey of using the Indian style toilet: ha, the amazing concept, which so many people fail to understand and appreciate. Its a beautiful construct of the human imagination. Thanks to whoever created it. Screw toilet papers. Yeah baby.

What else is beautiful and disturbing? The advertisements on the crumbled buildings right next to the sewage river, the street corners being turned into public restrooms, complete disregard for pedestrians everywhere, the joy of walking over the garbage bins on the side of the roads, and the sight of betel leaf stains in every single wall on the city. This is what I saw when I left, and somehow, I thought India would be developed in the two years gone by. No, I was an idiot. But, it will become beautiful. It will be a great place.(Not because I am back, but partly could be!)

We need to give ourselves some time.