The last few days have been a whirl. It’s as if I have been observing myself from above, going through the motions of departures and arrivals almost reflexively. The world passed by me as I gazed out the window.
First, it was the car window back home as we rushed to complete last-minute tasks. The bustling crowded roads sweltering with heat, the donkey carts laboring through, the colorful rickshaws that I would so dearly miss, the mango and banana carts adding their splash of yellow, roads I had known all my life, places I had crossed time and again on my way to medical school.
Then came the goodbyes, always bittersweet. Have you ever tried to say goodbye to teenage brothers? I strongly recommend you do not. No one will pretend to care less about your existence than them. Next is my middle brother, seven years younger than me yet always lecturing me on how useless I am (and abusing the contact form on my blog). I will miss that. Saying goodbye to my 86-year-old grandmother is the hardest; she blesses me with her prayers, but I am always afraid that the goodbye may turn out to be the last. Somehow, with my parents, I don’t feel anything. It is only a few hours later that it starts to kick in. I have nobody to instruct, scold, or depend on. I have to do it all on my own now. In the early days, my voice chokes when I speak to my dad on the phone, and I fight back tears. Because no matter how functional or dysfunctional things may be, they are still my parents and the truth is, I wouldn’t have come this far without them.
With that, we are back to the car window, heading to the airport at 2 am, gazing at the city that never sleeps with its chai dhabas and food streets. One thing I know for sure: you cannot go hungry in Karachi at any hour of the day. I also know that once I reach the airport, I will have to switch gears to English as a default. I may prefer coffee shops and American supermarkets, but I have a strong affinity for Urdu, so that always bums me out a little.
The next series of windows I go through on auto-pilot mode. Two planes, a relative’s car, the bus, another car. Half-awake, half-asleep. Moving my luggage from one vehicle to another. A race against time and a string of misfortunes. In a half-daze, I sometimes gather the courage to peek out the plane window, but it’s always scorching bright outside which I don’t understand. But I push aside the thought and retreat into my seat to the dimmed lights, the entertainment system, and food every few hours. I think the airways deliberately keep us in a comatose state so we don’t bother anyone for the 14-hour duration that we are all trapped here.
Countries and states pass by, but it is only when I look out the bedroom window that it dawns upon me. I am officially across the world. If I close my eyes, I can visualize my bedroom with its purple walls and the things I left behind. Alas, I cannot go back and retrieve the 1300-page novel that I had just started. Surprisingly, that is what I miss. I could have brought it with me, but let’s face it, who are we kidding? And for those of us who have traveled internationally, we all know the 23 kg luggage limit hangs like a noose around our necks.
But it’s worth it. For when you open your luggage and start unpacking, the familiar feel of home hits hard, and with it comes the hope that you might just be okay here.
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