Estimated time of departure: 1150 Hrs. However,
A text chimed: "Your flight is delayed by 30 minutes. It will depart now at 1220 Hrs."
Flight crew hummed: "Boarding complete. We are now ready for departure."
"This is your flight captain speaking. Due to some technical difficulty, the air conditioner in the flight is not coming online. We will depart as soon as it gets resolved."
Rudransh looked at his wrist watch. The needles were pointing at 12:55, and the second hand of his watch was trickling away one second at a time, indifferent to everything happening around. Right now, it was the only thing that was moving as per the plan. He smiled at the thought. However, not everyone was that amused at this delay.
There was another needle that was slowly but steadily rising — the temperature widget on his lock screen. With outside temperature touching 42 degrees, the ambience inside this metal tube was getting hotter, along with the heads of a few impatient passengers, through no fault of anyone's. If there was anyone to be blamed, it was the aircraft's air conditioning system, which had caved in due to the infamous dry heat of New Delhi. A long sigh left his lips as he accepted that now he was at the mercy of the technical prowess of the ground staff. Hot rays of sun seeping through the glass windows took Rudransh back to thoughts of a less hotter and more pleasant Bengaluru trip, that ended just a few days ago.
Planned time for landing at its destination. But —
"This is your flight captain speaking. Due to delay in resolving the AC issue, we have lost our slot for taking off from Terminal 2. We are now taxiing to Terminal 3, where we have requested for a priority takeoff."
Of all the days, today was the day when there were no books in Rudransh's bag to keep him company — that too on a flight that was adamant to not fly. The man seated next to Rudransh was visibly agitated and angry (so were at least thirty others) and was muttering to himself, "There goes my meeting, and that too on a Monday. Arghhh!" He had started questioning his life choices that brought him right next to Rudransh on a plane that was moving nowhere.
Thinking of how he got here, Rudransh smiled in his head but showed no emotions, more from the comfort that he had applied for a leave today, as all he wanted to do was rest after the hectic week he had had — wherein he attended a very christian wedding in Hyderabad, travelled to his hometown, roamed around like a wild dog, and today he arrived at Delhi airport from a very shareef punjabi (not the Car-o-bar kind) wedding of a very bengali friend in Noida. Some spectacle about unity and diversity.
The thought lingered: that in the fast paced world of practical people and logical decisions, what on earth was he doing at the wedding of a guy he just met in college a couple of years ago, with absolutely nothing in common. Well — except maybe a few things. And one of those common things is how it all started.
Back in early college days, when Rudransh was auditioning to play a role in the top drama committee of his college, he was quietly sitting on a desk while trying to scribble something in his notebook — some random quip or a deep thought, who knows. That's when the guy sitting next to him looked at Rudransh and said,
"Oh! You are a lefty too. I write with my left hand too."
Rudransh looked up to the most innocently rebel face he had ever seen in his life. Clean shaved, droopy eyes. The only thing that was not in place were the hair. The hair did not go with the face. It was as if they hadn't been combed in years. Later, Rudransh got to know they really weren't combed in years — and that is as innocent a story as the gentle voice that was excited at finding someone who wrote with the left hand like him.
Rudransh flicked the pen from his left hand and pushed the notebook towards his right, and quipped,
"I write with my right hand too."
And completed writing his thought with his right hand.
Both of them had no idea this small conversation would lead Rudransh to the seat of this eternally delayed flight three years later, and to all the chaos that they both stirred and calmed in those days, whether intentionally or by the universe's will.
Somewhere in the middle of their stint with the drama committee, one thing that kept happening was pure, unadulterated drama of the highest quality. A year passed by, and somehow, this disoriented pulp of a human being became Rudransh's responsibility to keep alive. So much so, that at one point, all the interaction they both used to have was just shared silence — because words could not describe the clusterf#%k they were participating in.
One fine day, this man child entered Rudransh's room — which was a trippy place in itself — and announced: "If all goes well, I found the girl I may end up marrying."
Rudransh did not believe in prophecies, for he knew the universe is indifferent to wishes of a boy who has not combed his hair since 10th standard because he had an altercation with his father. What made Rudransh smirk even then was another sentence: "and also I feel like Samwise Gamgee in front of her."
These one-liners and statements were the extent of their interactions during two years of college. Samwise's group of people — and even the girl he intended to get married to — could not understand the dynamics of his friendship with Rudransh, as Rudransh had his own reputation to uphold which stood exactly opposite to Samwise's.
Anyhow — the Hobbit's theme song was playing when Samwise's bride entered in a punjabi wedding. So I guess some prophecies do come true. And sometimes, just sometimes, as Tolkien wrote:
"Where there's life there's hope."
And that one little thought made Rudransh indifferent to this little delay in his plans. Another announcement broke his chain of thoughts.
"Hello from the flight deck. We are sorry for the delay. We understand the anguish, and believe us when we say that we are equally troubled. Our day started at 3:50 in the morning, and this is our last sector for the day. It has been more than 12 hours, and some of us hadn't had a meal since morning. We are hopeful that we will be flying in another 10 minutes."
Rudransh put his phone on flight mode and flew, after all.