‘Is this your first flight ever?’
‘Yes’
‘Yay!’ and the two girls continued some happy murmurs.
‘Why? What happened?’
‘It is also our first flight experiences ever!’
I smiled. ‘Wow! This will be beautiful’ I said to myself.
It was only a day back I had returned from the Manali Camp when I met these two girls for our train to Jammu. I was trying my best to get out of the beautiful Manali experience and make some space in my mind for new Ladakh memories. After this first conversation about having our first flight experiences together, I got even more excited to end the two day train journey to reach Jammu for our flight to Leh.
I was tired from the Manali trip, my mind wished to talk to them but my body just dozed of the entire two day travel. I still feel guilty for the night I slept and both of them took turns to look after our bags. When we finally reached Jammu late night, I decided to make up for it. We talked the entire night and for me there couldn’t be a better night before my first flight because now I wouldn’t be travelling with two girls, but two friends- Samina and Malina.
We reached the Jammu Airport at 5:30am which meant we had another two hours of waiting before we would be taken inside the Airport. When we finally got in we were hungry and sleep deprived. Luckily there was a box of food given with the Boarding Pass.
When I returned from the final bag check and realized it was only few minutes before my first flight something shook me inside. The box in my hand was getting wet, my new found friends were getting tensed, I had no clue why but I couldn’t stop crying.
‘What happened?’ both asked one after another. I couldn’t say anything.
I gulped some saliva and said, ‘I’ll be fine by the time we land. Let me be’
‘Sure?’ both echoed
‘Yes’ I nodded.
From January, when I booked the plane tickets, I was waiting for this day. A flashback of all the difficulties Maa faced to get the money and everything else sorted for this trip made me cringe. My Manali trip was overwhelming and I couldn’t believe Ladakh trip is yet to unfold. Everything was too good to be true. My mind had chaos of thoughts which kept pouring through my eyes. I decided to pen every thought down when I get to my seat in the plane.
I had a window seat and so did Samina and Malina as we had booked them early. I put my seat belt and did stream of consciousness writing till the flight begin. The sight from the window made me smile and the chaos in my mind disappear.
As soon as I got down from the flight, I hugged Samina tight. I turned and hugged Malina too. We had a small group hug and went to get our bags. I couldn’t utter a word but I was ready to explore as my mind managed to create a new folder for Ladakh memories.