Center seat @ #18 :)

I cannot be counted among those travelers who queue up in the line as soon as the airline staff  announces "boarding has started". Obviously when you are the last one on a stingy-space-saver-domestic flight, you don't have an aisle seat and you are wearing a tight formal skirt, that center seat seems like a tough target.

At another level i am a prey to everyone's eyes who are seated well in advance and are kind of cross with the delay as if i am thwarting the plane from flying. I somehow manage to push this gigantic laptop bag that weighs more than the laptop itself to the center seat and boom - cons of traveling alone, "Can you take #18, my friend can move here if that's Ok". Goddamn! dude, its just a one hour flight, One. Freaking. Hour. I curse her in my head. Putting a fake smile on my face I act civilized enough in an only hope of an aisle seat @ #18, I get up, do the reverse journey to find out that its a center seat again, arghhh! This time its even worse. The aunty doesn't bother to get up, she simply pretends to move, lets me squeeze in and there is a sudden bitter realization that the butt has goto get slimmer if I wish to continue flying domestics.

I settle down and slide my phone in the seat pocket. This guy on my right helps me with my spectacles that i drop down and asks, "Are you flying to Nagpur" and there is another bitter sudden realization that the flight is actually en route Nagpur with a stop in Pune. Embarrassed with my messy self over the last couple of minutes & startled with my ignorance i smirk and say " No, Pune". And that is pretty much it. For the next hour, I question & answer and am astonished, electrified and filled with wonder to find out how much we actually have in common. Right from a Masters degree in US to our neighboring offices in Bangalore's industrial hub to the hotel which i usually stay in at a 5 mins walk from his house. Small world...sure a cliche but can't help!

The timing in thoughts is quite unique because thoughts come from your inner soul. It strikes when wavelengths match. The moment he tells me that he loves the charm of Europe even after residing in US for a couple of years, i make up my mind that this South-Indian (who looks like a North Indian btw) biker bloke with a great sense of humor, is for a keepsake.

Someone said..."Strangers are just friends that you haven't met yet" !! Take chances with strangers, you may not make friends but you will make memories for sure! I hope to ride his Royal-En-field one day but i gather that he is too much in love with it, i am not sure if he will risk it, only time will tell :P

I dream of painting and then i paint my dream...

Tik-tok-tik-tok, I walk over the uneven stony squares with my heels getting stuck in between the gaps of the surface but my anxious feet keep increasing the pace and run towards tower B1. I rush into the lift and my fingers run to the number 10 before my eyes even find it. I am conscious of this other person standing in front of me as I am quite drenched in sweat after all that rush. I look at him and quickly take my eyes off turning to the rapidly changing red digits on the display, 1 and 2 and 4 and 7 and 10, stop! I am almost at the edge of the lift, if this was a cliff, I would have fallen down as soon as the door opens. I step out to a windy corridor and a strong smell of fresh paint. If I didn’t know where I live or if I was blind folded, I would have simply followed this wave of smell surrendering myself to its newness. I stand at the door, look at 10-10 and scroll my hand over it like I would do for any of my loved one. With a full and long breath I open the door and the white color smells even stronger. The house is messy, Ruhaan finds his way through the unpacked boxes and comes running to me as he always does. His eyes are beaming with cheer and happiness or is it my eyes that have soaked so much satisfaction that everything seems happy and cheerful around?  I realize how extremely different it looks now then what we had seen on day 1. I also realize it resembles so closely to the vision we had of what it should look like. I assure myself that the roller coaster ride in the last month to get it into a completely new shape, color, look and feel has landed back safely. 

People refer to it as an investment, property, saving rent, practical decision blah blah. I refer to it as “a house...my house…our house”. I don’t know if a feeling of being able to hammer nails in any of the walls, paint windows in any color and not worry about the white kitchen spoiling by Indian masalas, is quite worth putting all your savings to buy a house in Singapore or not. I would rather restrain myself from finding any reasons and just enjoy this ultimate joy of being an owner of this cozy space which is designed, decorated, furnished, painted and brought to life with our own specific taste. And that’s why it belongs…so much… to us, not just because of some sign on a paper and transfer of title.

Post-dinner, we sit in the drawing room with very minimal lighting and the place is still glowing and shining in the dark. Like I said before, the glow is kind of lingering in our eyes probably. We don't talk much, just sit there holding hands, looking at each other and looking around, smelling the sweetest thing ever....the new paint.