Going Places

Farzana Rajabali was unhappy. It was a day unlike any other she had ever imagined. The very same day she was due at the airport to take a flight turned out to be the day the city of Mumbai went into lockdown. Her parents were rather pleased that their 22-year-old was so enthusiastic about returning to university in Pennsylvania, but they were sensible people who did not go up against unrealistic odds. If the law of the land said stay at home they would not challenge it.

Dad was a stickler for the rules and Mom was a stickler for the peace. "You're part of a bigger community after all," was their standard retort while making a compromise. Dad's response to a situation like this would be 'let's go in early and camp out there'. The family's response to Dad's plan would usually be hysterical negation, but on this particular day Farzana was willing to be his champion.

Mumbai was in lockdown was due to the demise of a local political leader, whose claim to fame was communal disharmony and a hefty dose of viciousness. His followers were mean and they liked to break things. They claimed their late leader was hugely respected, and people from all over wanted to pay their respects at his funeral. The rest of the city had to shut down to accommodate them. Shops were made to close, offices were emptied, and musicians made to get off stage. If anyone in the city felt joy at the passing of the old cantankerous rabble-rouser they were not free to express it.

The funeral procession was taking the exact same route their family car would need to take in order to get to the airport. Short of camouflaging themselves amongst the mourners Farzana had no idea what they could possibly do. And that was also entirely unfeasible because who was going to carry the bags? It was not going to be a peaceful and civilised procession; there would be pushing and possibly singing.

Farzana was in a state of gloom. She had done nothing to deserve this confinement and sabotage. Her family was Ismaili, a progressive form of Islam. Their spiritual leader lived in the South of France, bred race-horses in England, had built a museum in Toronto, and awarded a global prize for Architecture. Men and women of their community could pray together side-by-side. Her hormonal and adventure-seeking heart could not understand why she was being made to suffer by a situation like this.

If it came down to it Dad would call the travel agent and have the ticket changed. If that happened then Dad would also discover that the ticket he thought he was buying was not in fact that ticket. It was not a Mumbai-Frankfurt-Philadelphia ticket as he had imagined, it was just a Mumbai-Frankfurt ticket. Farzana, in fact, had plans to meet her boyfriend in Paris, and then on to Amsterdam, before going to university in Pennsylvania. An American boyfriend, an amour-friendly Paris, and a marijuana-friendly Amsterdam was what the young lady had planned for herself and the two senior Ismailis, as cool as Ismailis were, were probably not going to be too happy about this development.

Farzana assessed her father's behaviour from a distance. He was sitting on the living room couch with the television turned up loud to news of the funeral procession, his one eye and both ears on the television while scrolling through a twitter feed on traffic alerts from around the city on his phone. Farzana prayed for a miraculous development, like news of an enterprising helicopter shuttle service. Surely they were making some accommodations for emergencies.

"It will be cold in Philadelphia," Dad's voice jolted her out of escapist visions. "I hope you're carrying your jacket."

Farzana nodded and smiled, Paris was going to be cold too and she was most certainly carrying her jacket. No lies were being told, and it looked like Dad was amenable to risking the family car.

"Do you think I can make this evening then," she asked, "is there an alternate route we can take?"

Her father peered at her with the slightest hint of disdain for his twenty-two year old daughter who still did not have much of an idea as to which roads went where in the city she had grown up in.

"They have to cremate him before sunset. Then the roads will thin out. We'll leave as soon as we can and get there and wait. It's the only way to do it. Don't tell me you really thought this was going to be a problem?"

With a dismissive shake of his head he retreated back to the eye of his data-storm leaving his daughter delighted and grateful.