Flight

My days have started and ended with goodbyes for some time now. The postman has been bringing goodbye cards, school children I’ve seen in the street and supermarket have said goodbye, the phone has been ringing with goodbyes, the e-mail inbox is full of them. I have hijacked a baby shower, a birthday, several Eid parties and many lunches with friends and made them, at least for a moment, goodbye parties. I’m looking forward to another greeting.

Having said goodbye to some friends the other day I was sitting in the autumn sunshine, sad. The weather was indeed noteworthy for its loveliness, so it was not totally banal to comment on it to a stranger, making the only permissible conversation with strangers in England. I don’t know why, but I went a bit further,
“I’ll have left before these leaves fall.”
“Oh, where are you going?”
“Pakistan.”
She had grown up in Africa, and was able to relate a cautionary tale from Khartoum that I am mindful of as I approach customs and immigration. It was hot when she disembarked and her eyes had turned green. They change from blue to green according to heat, the colour of clothing or, like beauty, the eye of the beholder. In her passport photo, they were clearly blue. She fluttered her lashes, and though she is old now, I can imagine the effect this could have had.
“A lady is allowed to change her mind, is she not?”
She was arrested and put in jail for that. Her father, a diplomat, was furious.
I lower my eyes and am simple-sadhi-si, as they say of modest women.

A Gandharan Buddha, the neat millennia-old streets of Mohendojaro and the slogan, ‘Travel Through Time’ is how the screen on this jumbo jet promotes Pakistan as a place of historical interest. A hundred years ago, adventurers maybe did Travel Through Time - 3 months anyway - by sea, to reach Pakistan. Right now I like the idea of arriving rested, without the immediate business of home buzzing into jetlagged sleeping and waking, possibly even having mastered the language and met the love of my life.

‘Heaven on Earth’ is the next advert for Pakistan, on a background of happy faces, glorious mountain scenery and...apricots. These same voyagers maybe took their coffins, too, knowing that working here was indeed their calling from and en route to Heaven.

Whether or not that is how I’m travelling, I am accompanied by near-angelic fellow travellers. On the way to the airport I was joined by two new friends, who, because of an Eid cancellation of my flight, I am now able to fly with. Just when it seemed hard to leave, one of them, whose name means splendour, sang favourite old Bollywood songs as he looked me in the eyes over the huge mound of luggage between us on the back seat. Even better, he told me his life story of miracles and transformation. I remembered with a thrill why I was going. A glance outside at snarled up traffic on the M62 served as another reminder.

We three ‘hamsafars’ (fellow travellers) switch into and out of Urdu. My friend carries my violin for me and we walk like Raj Kapoor, Bollywood’s Charlie Chaplin, onto the flight singing, ‘Jonny Joker, wiolin bajao’. The boarding-card collector asks if he will be providing in-flight entertainment and he kind of does, as he sings songs he makes up with a heart full of praise while others try to settle for sleep. Some stare. Our tall English friend who speaks Urdu curries favour with the steward so we have carte blanche to ask for seconds. I have indeed received a double portion, and not just of the korma.