Phyre takes Flight

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June 2, 2009.
3:40pm IST.

As I pen this down, I am hurtling through a blue sky in a absolutely magical ride at around 940kms/hour. All I can see around me is a white haze. All I can see below me are fluffy white clouds. Clouds one could very well imagine to be goose down, whipped cream, cotton candy or a hundred different things that feel equally comforting and feel just as lovely.

Airplanes are, without a doubt, one of the coolest things invented by mankind. As the plane I was strapped in taxied before takeoff on the runway, I saw an airplane take flight. It was the first time I had seen a sight like that with my own two eyes.

Graceful, powerful and in an odd way, divine. It was magnificent.

From then on, until the time I finally gathered my wits to pen this down, my mouth had been frozen into a muoue of awe and wonder.

Yes, it is my first flight. And yes, it stole my breath away. Literally.

As the plane slowly lifted off the runway, I felt nothing but for a wild sense of exhileration and gratitude. My first trip to someplace unkown in a transport I had never before experienced was happening alone.

I had the window seat. Heck, I had the entire row of seats. It was my own private strip in a flight almost filled with people.

So in my solitude, I grinned and exclaimed all I could. Mad and freely. My muoue slowly transformed into a gape as the aircraft slowly gained momentum and geared up for the fastest zoom-off I have known. A L O N E.

The runway soon became a strip under me and then a dull slash. The buildings became little dots and then spots. The murky brown seas gave way to turquoise waters and soon Bombay- the land I was born in and roamed around in for more than twenty years was little more than an inconsequential speck. Gone.

I am now further from home than I have been at any other point of my life. The three old biddies travelling with me make up my entire connection with my hometown. My cellphone has been switched off. There is no internet to while away time with either.

All I have is a borrowed pen, an old diary, some luggage, too many mangoes, my altitude-soaked thoughts and faint strains of “Katherine Kiss Me” drifting through my mind.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting things to have ever happened to me in a long, long time. Far from being disgruntled (as I initially was) about making my first flight alone, I am happy and humming. Not a bad twist in my plight if I might say so.

What is even crazier in fact,  is that my first trip in an aircraft made for an unusual and unexpected anniversary present. The anniversary of four years of the start of my wild and passionate affair with a unique man.

Happy Anniversary Melroy. And for the man that you are, Thank You.

June 2, 2009.
4:10pm IST.

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Filed under Anniversary, Bahrain, Dramas, Dreams, Family, Husband (to-be), India, Love, Love Stories, Mumbai