Mar 07, 2014 – Homecoming – Patansaongi, Maharashtra, India 🎨 🎊

It was the first time I was visiting my parents’ place after joining the Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) 👨🏾‍💻 in Bangalore. My parents live in a small town named “Patansaongi”, which is roughly 20 miles from Nagpur. I think it had been almost seven months I was away from home and started missing my family. The month of March was a perfect excuse to visit home 🏡 as we had a couple days off because of Holi celebrations and March 7th was birthday of one of my sisters 👩.

My desire to see my parents grew more when one of my teammates told me that he is also leaving home for Holi 🎨. That was the trigger for me. I sought approval from my manager and he was cool with it. A couple words about my then manager – he was and still is one of the best bosses I had. Over the years, I got to know him closely and he has been so inspirational to me, and I must tell you his sharp and sarcastic comebacks which no one can beat.

Getting back to my homecoming. I, obviously, took the flight home, because I could and why not! #humblebrag 😝

This journey stood out for me because of the two reasons.

The first one was I did see a celebrity while I was waiting to board my flight. As the famous Indian comedian Mr. Zakir Khan 🎭 says all the time – “Jindagi mein rakha kya hai, airport teen ghante pehle pahunch jate hai!” (I have nothing better to do, so I get to airport three hours earlier) Oh man, that line cracks me up.

So the celebrity that I am talking about here is Mr. Robin Uthappa, 🏏 a famous Indian cricketer. Well, he was famous back then, but now – not so much. During this time, I had the cheapest phone a person can ever own, with (are you ready?) a V.G.A. camera 🤳🏼. Gosh, the photos were terrible 🖼. So, I did not want to embarrass myself by asking him to click a selfie with me, and just enjoyed the moment, capturing it in my memory. Surprisingly, no one else got up from their seats to click a picture with him. I suspect either people see a lot of him or the passengers’ did not recognize him 🤷🏽‍♂️.

The second reason was more interesting and kind of exciting for me.
After seeing Mr. Uthappa, a girl and a boy 👫 walked in and took seats a few seats away from me. At first, it was nothing out of the usual, but the curiosity got better of me and I started noticing them. It looked like the girl was visible upset 😢 and the guy was trying to console her. I started looking away after that, until the boy left. That’s when things started to “dazzle” a little bit.

I do not recollect whether it was me or her who switched the seats to talk. We started talking with topics like the places we live in Bangalore and our work life. I used to live in Kammanahalli back then and she told me she lived in Whitefield 🇮🇳. If you have ever lived in Bangalore, you will realize that this distance is not that much and a 500D bus 🚌 can take you both these place. Gosh, I loved that bus and the route. Anyway, getting back to the story, continuing with the discussion, I took a step forward and asked about the boy. She opened up and said he was a friend and came to drop her off at the airport as she was feeling down due to some problem home, for which, she was heading Nagpur, her home.

I did not want to pursue the sad part of the story, so I tried to distract her with different topics like her hobbies, our love for cricket, and what not. Before we knew, we had started to board the flight. I asked her “seat” number and found that she was at 22E and I was at 23D. It was pure luck 🧧. I wanted to seize this opportunity and spend more time with her; as soon as we boarded the flight ✈️, I let everyone settle in and prayed that nobody sits beside her. And fortunately, things went that way. I asked the air hostess if we were done with the boarding, and she confirmed. This was the moment! 🤞🏽 I tapped on her shoulder and asked if I could sit beside her. She complied and then we took off the runway. 😎

We continued our discussion where we left it off. Before we know it, we were leaning towards each other. I think, whatever the tragedy was for her, she just wanted someone to console her. She was relaxed enough that she put her head on my shoulder. I was “listening” to her conversation 🙇🏽. Based on the interaction and the kind of state that she was in, I did not feel the need to go ahead and “try” anything, so I “controlled” myself and just acted as a consoling shoulder for her.

Two seconds later, I found out she wanted more. This is where things get interesting. It was a red eye flight, so the pilot 👨🏽‍✈️ turned the lights 💡 off, and things started heating up. I noticed she lifted her head off my shoulder and before I could react, I experienced a small peck on my left cheek. I was taken aback; but didn’t mind it. I wanted to see where this goes, but to my dismay, she quickly apologized and told me she should not have done that and (are you ready for this?) “SHE HAS A BOYFRIEND!”. Till this day, I believe the last part is UNTRUE.

If I want to be completely honest with you, I did not feel good at all and felt like I just lost something! I know I should not have felt like that; but, I am a human being! I just laugh at it thinking about it today.
What followed after that was a 90 minute awkwardness. Her head was still on my shoulder; but we barely spoke. I think she drifted off or was pretending to have. It was the most awkward situation I have been till that date! I just wanted the flight to be over and see my family, so even I pretended to be asleep, and eventually drifted off to sleep.

The moment the pilot 👨🏽‍✈️ announced that we landed, I was so relieved, I got up and found her to be awake already. I smiled and told her that I will get back to my seat for my bags. I think she was also relieved that I came back to my seat.

While deboarding, I let others get ahead of me so that I could avoid walking with her. To my disappointment, she was waiting for someone at the gate to pick her up when I was leaving the airport, so I could not ignore and had to give a half hearted smile and a good bye hug. “I WAS FINALLY FREE”, I told myself. 🤪 The journey had finally come to an end! It was not a good one, though!

The funny thing about this interaction was – I forgot to ask her name, her location in Nagpur, and deliberately did not ask for her number. I was glad that I got this story out of this interaction.
Hope you find it interesting, funny, may be rude even, but I just wanted to share it with you. Man, this turned out to be a long post.
If you reached here, I salute you.

Zàijiàn!