Transits

Transits of journeys have always fascinated me. Railway stations, bus terminals and airports. For some peculiar reason I have always felt at home at these places. I always go in early and gaze around like one would do in a rainy day at home by the balcony.

It’s fascinating to see such a sea of humanity merging towards at a junction and helter-skelter run to their various terminals and then onto their various destinations. Now, that few minutes to hours, we, travellers are in that transit and we belong nowhere. Different noses, coloured eyes, hairstyles, peculiar eyebrows and tongues one may never identify. Smiles you share on random turns and apologies you give for placing your hand on the major portion of the arm rest. The peeks you give to find out desperately what a co-traveller is reading and wondering which part of the world they are now travelling.

It’s magical when all this comes together because deep inside we always wanted to live somebody else’s life. Maybe, a happier family, a couple on another honeymoon, that business traveller who keeps shuffling cities, the air hostess who lives in the sky or maybe a student visiting home from university. In these transits you sometimes want to trade lives.

But I sit back and think how many are looking at me right now with a Starbucks which misspelt my name yet again in hand, a book waiting to be read on the table teasing me as I’m smiling softly to myself as I write this and wanting to be me. We live in our lives wanting to be in others and they in ours.

Transits at the end are going home. Journeys are finding yourself. Well, home, is home. And I’m here confused because transits feel at home for me.

I know where I belong in a very peculiar way.