Missed Flight-2

Writer Rani Rao Innes pens an insightful three-part story about the need for freedom and the desire for roots, exclusively for the readers of Unboxed Writers. 

“Are you out of your mind?” Maya was looking at her with a mixture of concern and exasperation. They were sitting in the little balcony of Maya’s flat sipping chai her maid had brought out, with hot pakoras that Sapna loved to nibble at with her chai. Maya had remembered. She also remembered Sapna declaring she’d never settle for an arranged marriage. She wanted the spark, so she’d wait for the lightning.

 “Well, this wasn’t exactly arranged,” Sapna said lamely. She was trying to convince herself more than Maya that the choice to marry Arjun was entirely her own. It helped to think that her parents embraced her decision wholeheartedly.  She looked down at the street below with rows of little stalls and shacks selling everything from fruit and flowers to saris, shoes and silver. There were tea stalls dotted all along and children and dogs loitering outside.

The incessant honking of cars, bikes and autorickshaws was audible even at this height. This expensive highrise gated condominium was in one of the more exclusive areas of Mumbai. But, even here, the shacks of the shanty towns were never far away. She disliked Mumbai as much at Maya loved it. At least in Bangalore, you did not have to look out of your dining room window at slums when you were having your toast and jam. Sapna suppressed this disloyal thought knowing how proud Maya was of the flat she had made for herself after her divorce. Could not have been easy to do all this on her own as she had not got a rupee in maintenance. Sapna admired her friend who had always stood on her own feet and thumbed her nose at the establishment. 

“But do you love him?”

“Maya, I’m 28 and I don’t know what love really means. Lightning has struck a couple of times but always fizzled out. I’ve never felt I wanted to settle down with them, make a home or have kids. With Arjun, I feel safe.”

“Safe. Can you listen to yourself, Sapna. Safe! Is that a reason to marry and spend the rest of your life with someone?”

Sapna looked away blinking back tears. Maya had sensed she was having doubts and even starting to panic she had made the wrong decision. And now Maya was trying to make her face the truth. She turned back to Maya and demanded, “What about you? Where is your Mr Right, then?

“There isn’t any. I doubt there will be either. I don’t think I’ll ever want to settle down  again. Married relationships don’t really last, even if the partners don’t break up.”

Sapna was surprised. “That’s a bit cynical, isn’t it?” she said.

“Maybe, but that is how I feel. But I have seen too many who stay together to keep up appearances. I don’t want to live a lie.”

“But what about companionship… or… or… loneliness?”.

“Bollocks! We can be just as lonely within a marriage, or fulfilled in what we do otherwise.”

“What about children?”

“Do you know how many children there are in the slums right here in Mumbai that need a good home?”

Maya had answers to all her questions. Although Sapna knew Maya did not strongly support the institution of marriage, she hadn’t realised the feeling was so ingrained.  There was some truth in what Maya said, though. Sapna thought of all her university mates back in the UK and how many of them came from broken homes. Practically all her closest friends’ parents had broken up. The parents had once been in love. Lightning had struck and they had exchanged vows of eternal togetherness when they married. Few lasted. But they hadn’t given up on marriage. They had remarried!

 Sapna felt an urge to escape. She felt fettered, trapped in a relationship which would steal her freedom. She tried to calm herself. “Remember the playpen,”  she told herself. Her sister had bought a playpen for her children so she could keep an eye on the toddlers while she cooked. Her niece had loved it as a haven where she could be near her mother and play safely. Her nephew, however, had hated it regarding it as a cage that imprisoned him. Was it finally our attitude towards marriage and relationship that made us view them as a bond or bondage? Isn’t this what her mother would tell her? “Pre-marital nerves,” she’d call it, smiling her indulgent calming smile.

 They went in for dinner in a somber mood and Maya finished packing. They sat up talking for a long time. Maya was worried her friend was making a mistake she would regret for the rest of her life. She wanted Sapna to have the guts to tell her parents and Arjun if she had any doubts.  Now was not too late. After the wedding, it would be.

 Sapna made one decision at least during the night. She’d not fly alone but go to Bangalore by train with Maya, if tickets were still available. They were. She could not face going back to Bangalore alone just yet. She would have Maya for moral support and it would give her another 24 hours to think things over. Flying to where expectations were oppressively in wait, was still an unpleasant prospect. She could buy time with the slower train journey.  Yes, there was a reason why she had missed the flight. It was true, things always happened for a reason, even if you don’t know what they are at the time – so her mother said.

To be continued..

Rani Rao Innes is the senior partner and lead trainer of Link Communications, a specialized communications skills company based in the UK. She has regularly presented courses and training workshops for private and public business sectors as well as students and teachers in the UK, Belgium, Malaysia, Japan and India. She has also been active in theatre for 30 years and was the director of Canterbury Players in Kent for eight years.