There is something immensely intriguing about the window seat.
Logistically, it enables an individual to stay away from the turbulent cacophony of the airplane. Cozy, cornered and comforting—a window seat is an undisputed cocoon within which passengers undergo a unique metamorphosis of their own.
Dramatic as this description may sound, as I stretched my legs and pressed my back against the cushion on my window seat in AI-174, the plane that was going to take me from my hometown—New Delhi, to my University town—Berkeley, I looked at the two seats that almost seemed to be stuck to mine. Going to the washroom was going to be a challenge, I grimaced.
As the gut-stirring runway roll began, I positioned my head against the window and closed my eyes. Sixteen hours of upcoming travel greeted me with outstretched arms and slit eyes, and I knew that succumbing to the magnetic palms of sleep was the only way to make this seemingly endless time period bearable.
Six hours into the journey, I recollect experiencing the soft pull of orange against my eyelids. With all its might, orange pressed itself against my eyes, threatening to burst through my eyeballs and collect in little pools under my cheeks As my skin-membrane merged with these luminescent fibers of light, I opened my eyes. Almost instinctively, I brushed my palms against my cheek—wanting to wipe away, or at least reckon with the orange that had clasped my cheeks with its claws.
After struggling to trace the source of this light, my gaze drifted to the window that had served as an unwilling pillow for the past six hours. I saw the sunrise—as clearly as I would see my sleep-ridden eyes in my looking glass back home. However, as opposed to the aesthetic outlook that posters—and images—would present, the sunrise presented itself as delightfully humane.
A moment later, as our plane seemed to slow down, all the passengers within, such as myself, had directed their complete attention to the sunrise. I think such a flamboyant display of possibly unwanted attention worried the clouds, as they kept urging the sun out of sight. The sun, a playful child—and a stubborn mule in this tug-of-war—seemed to respond to them with innocent admonishment and kept appearing at the forefront of the sky.
I looked at the clouds and analyzed their demonstrations of parenthood, finding myself pleasantly surprised by the equality in their gestures. As opposed to the maternal softness and paternal stringency depicted by human parents, these clouds addressed the sun with equal intensity. On witnessing their plight, I experienced an idyllic example of collaborative parenthood that could not be discovered within the colorful pages of the guidebooks, and how-to-become-a-perfect-parent manuals that had occupied a major span of my lifetime.
