It’s like Haruki Murakami’s story.
I booked the wrong flight and am stranded at the Chennai Airport. I have five hours to fly and nine hours of journey with two layovers, for a typical two-hour journey at five times the cost. The worst part is that I have no one else to blame — I mistakenly booked the flight for the same date but a different month.
I find a seat in the food court with the charging station, look out at the flights and people and I can see myself reflected in the clean glass — disheveled hair, thirty-seven-year-old, grey beard, oxford shirt loosely tucked into khaki pants, and years of tiredness.
An almost nine-year-old sits by my side, plugs in the phone charger, strikes up the conversation, and asks what book I am reading — just like a Haruki Murakami story — a lonely man in an unusual situation when he receives a random call or stranger or a fucking cat starts speaking to him.
Kitchen confidential, I say. He smiles and says ok.
He doesn’t know shit. I don’t know shit either. He just wants some attention like a puppy.
What do I do — engage him or keep reading the book I am holding?
Neither. I shoo him off, have a smug smile, and look at the people through the glass.
I am no fucking Haruki Murakami.