(Suparna Singh is Director of Strategy, NDTV and Managing Editor of ndtv.com)
It had started small, the pain, appearing disinterested in occupying more than the corner it had, suggesting that it would, for the large part, do as it was told. Then it had started pushing, growing a little every week it seemed, till here it was - this impossibly round balloon filling her stomach, pushing against the seatbelt, refusing to stand down till she thought it would hole-punch its way to burst out, leaving behind an it-ness of hollow.
The sky outside, she thought, was nothing but the sea of the world standing on its head. Somewhere below in this upside-down bay, the stars were Chinese orange lanterns strung together bequeathing, upon those who cared to look, the arrival of a new year.
She thought of how planes these days seemed to disappear as if the sky were an etch-a-sketch that had been pulled clear in seconds with nobody to answer to, as if there were not hundreds of people coursing through it just seconds ago, each within reach of a window.
This is what they must have seen, she thought, all those people who moved outside their windows. They were not to be found because they were in the space between the two etch-a-sketch sheets, in special suits with crazy-looking googles, holding hands and floating like the videos she had seen of skydivers who jump out of planes, smiling because they are strapped to each other.
This, she realized, would be revulsive for their families.
That December, every window had offered itself up as a point of departure; all she had to do was sign up. Every roof, she would later discover, was assessed in a transaction so independent of deliberation, that it was only when they rose before her, un-summoned, impertinently volunteering their enlistment, that she realized she had graded them. Sometimes it would strike her that it was they who had benchmarked her, not the other way around, for suitability of use.
In a small room with red walls, in a conversation she never spoke of, her friend, curled up a few feet away from her, had mapped for her a route. Walk toward the sea, she had said, it is so big, it will take whatever you can part with. Close your eyes while you walk, strewing sand that is gradually cooling, surrendering the warmth of its day to the sunset. Walk, walk till the waves allow you on their turf, surrender to them the hollow. Reach in, pull out, bundle it into a piece of cloth, and let them, the waves, take it away; they know how to move on. This is your sea, she had said.
Since then, she painted her toenails blue, as if to grant her feet visitation rights to the water, so that when it was time, they would know which way to head.
That morning, she had spent hours in her hotel room, watching the large bridge that was so close, it seemed to hold her window, like some sort of giant reassuring skywalk. She thought about stepping out onto it, inching ahead, dissolving every few steps into the water. Underneath, underneath.
They are landing now, and she wishes they wouldn't. The runway with its borders of blue lights seems entirely confident of stretching out forever. It could be worse, it could be worse, she says, trying to push back the balloon. Before devices get to do their thing, she wants to pause, for just a bit, before re-entering the stream of photos, articles, words posted by people as proof, "Look, this is who we are."
On the road moving up the flyover, the orange bus is empty, its digital code of letters and numbers without any takers tonight. The seats for twos and threes, unemployed, seem complicit; they follow the driver somewhere else. When it rains, she thinks, the wipers of that empty bus go back and forth, contesting each other with thudding arguments, like lawyers in a court-room. Stop, start. Something, nothing.
The rituals of her room by night. She lights the candle by her bed. The flowers, slightly frayed, having exhausted their best shot. A song on loop, like the phone chanting it over and over, this much and no more.
In the large drawer, in a jumbled corner of buttons and photographs and cut-off price-tags, her hands meet the scissors in a section of things that have not realized their potential.
The balloon moves up, she can feel it pushing past her chest. In the somersaulted sky, the stars are shells. They come away easily, the scissors, they meld into her hands. She pries them open and introduces the glint and steel to her hair. She is in their hands now.
Inside her, the balloon moves to make room. She is in the sort of suit that she has seen astronauts wear. It seems to fill with air as she steps out of the plane. And then there she is, with them, holding hands, her hair streaming out behind her as she drops straight into their circle.
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