Dreams Aren't Real

Chapter 3

22nd August ‘14

Ladies and gen’men, may I have your attention? Fasten your seatbelts, the plane’s going to land in about twelve minutes from now.” Blurted a speaker just above my head in a strange African-American accent. “Contacting control room,” it seemed one of the pilots just forgot to turn off the microphone “turbulence in the course, may need emergency landing.” That was it. That was only needed for everyone around to start howling, and crying for help. The airhostess immediately fled into the cockpit to calm things down. “Sorry for inconvenience, ladies and gentlemen. Please be at your seats, and fasten your seatbelts. No need to panic, we’ll be landing anytime now. Thanks for your attention.” And she signed off. But this wasn’t enough, especially for a plane half filled with Indians. If the number of people on board had to be represented in a Venn diagram, having one part for Indians, one for women, and one for people in the age bracket of thirty five to forty, the intersection of the three still had 2 people, and that was enough to create havoc. The two of them kept on lamenting and chanting all sorts of Hindu mantras until the plane finally landed, and they were assured they were safe.

“Welcome to New York,” said two of the security guards standing across the doorway. They were quite huge, unlike their Indian malnourished-looking counterparts. The doorway led to a gigantic hall with carpeted floor, and a lots of exits to various terminals. A moving walkway took me to the main exit, from where I stepped into the New York City. I dreamt of visiting this place ever since I watched Sex and the City, and now since I had eight days left for my college to start, I had ample amount of time to wander around and moreover, my aunt lived here and I hadn’t seen her since three years.

“Hey Arpit, what took you so long to get out of that airport?” said someone from behind. This surprised me as I knew no one here except my aunt, and I made sure she didn’t know that I was coming. I turned around to check.

“So how are you?” She WAS my aunt. I used to call her mausiji. My mom had only one sister, so I didn’t have to take her name before mausiji.

“Hi, I’m good.” I cursed the person who had told her for I had to surprise her, but it was her who surprised me. She had grown lot older than the last time I saw her. Wrinkles around her eyes were visible from a distance, but still she was as beautiful as she used to be back then. “Who told you that I’ll be here?”

“I have my sources,” she winked, and continued to walk towards her car. I followed her.

While in her car, I decided to make a note of how beautiful the city looked. The narrow streets ending up into wider roads across the avenues at exactly right angles; the lack of smoke, or any kind of dust; the absence of honking in the middle of streets were something new to my Indian sense organs and I knew it’ll take a lot of time to settle here. I was ready to face anything for I could see my dream turn into reality. We both stayed quiet in the entire drive to her home, even though we had a lots to talk.

As I stepped out, I was startled by a bull dog looking straight at me. This dog too was huge, unlike its Indian malnourished-looking counterparts. Americans like everything big, I had read somewhere. We have a 2-litre pack of coke in India, while in America, they have 10-litre-bottle; in India family-sized pizza is 11”, while in America that’s the size of a regular one. In India, at a height of 5 feet 9 inches, I was considered tall, while in America, I haven’t yet found a man shorter than me. So I felt really small, and I started to feel alien. I was missing my home already and to add to it, I had my overly concerning uncle to face.

“Arpit, come in. Feel like home, I’m going to work and your uncle’s not here too.” The last part relieved me. But I knew I had to face him sometime.