How I wish!!!

After almost a week, the giant water taps have finally been turned off and the dryer turned on. Well I was alluding to the rain and the sun. It was a nice and pleasant day yesterday. On my way back home from the lab I decided to take the campus bus and as a reward I was dumped unceremoniously in the huge parking lot on campus where the buses are usually refuelled. There is nothing unique about that place. It is infact quite ubiquitous except for the fact that yesterday there were people flying airplanes in the p lot. Ok they were the miniature models. So what one might ask....... anything that flies against gravity amazes me endlessly. I am a person who thinks that the airplanes are one of the most wonderful of human inventions. I love flying. The pleasure I derive when the airplane lifts off, and I feel a familiar pull behind my navel as if somebody were drawing me with a hook, is immense. How I wish I could also fly like a bird....

As I write this post I recall some of the memorable moments that I would like to put down here. I always used to run up to the terrace at my home whenever I heard the familiar thunder of jet engines. I would sit there staring at the trails of white left behind these monstrous birds. I often dreamt of flying a plane once myself. But strangely Iam also afraid of heights, the bundle of contradictions that I am. Days passed by and I still used to gape whenever I heard an airplane.

The incident I mention here is pretty recent. I was working in Hyderabad and I had gone out with a colleague of mine (he was a senior scientist and my boss). There came the usual sound from above and involuntarily my head lifted up and when the plane had passed, each of us was looking at the other with a sheepish grin on our faces. For I realised that day, that we shared a common passion. In fact he had done a lot of research and had even considered taking professional flying lessons, only dropping it when he found that they were too expensive. He realised that I was infatuated with the concept of flying and when I resigned the job to come here, he and another colleague gifted me with two of the best books I have ever read on flying "Biplanes" and " A gift of wings" by Richard Bach. Apparently Bach was a pilot himself. Lucky guy.sigh......

Anyways I never thought I would fly in a plane much less relish every minute of it. I am eagerly waiting for the next time I can fly, which is when I fly back home. A double treat huh ;)...