I wasn’t in the United States for
50,400 minutes.
Which is 35 days.
Which is five weeks.
Actually I was half away across the globe and thousands of miles away from home. Once again, three years later, I was traveling 8,448 miles away from home. The destination of course was always a ring of excitement when heard. Especially for me. I mean India, lush trees, exotic locations, intricate temple structures,
My family.
My grandparents, my aunts, uncles, cousins. And its pretty tough when we’re all in different corners of the world. Us in the U.S, them in different places in India, some of my mom’s family in Singapore, my eldest cousin and her family in London. I mean imagine a map of the world layed flat in front of you. If I were to pinpoint each place are family is on that map with a pushpin, it would be obvious to see that all of us are miles apart from each other. But that will never give me the right to say that I am not indebted to everyone who as cared for me even from afar, has always told me that I will do great things. Long before I was even told about the trip, I kept it in my heart that I wanted to show them all, whether I saw all of them or not, how much I appreciate what they do.
I don’t want them to think that I don’t know what they do for everyone. Everyone but themselves. They always keep smiles on their faces. Not plastic smiles. Real, and true that don’t wanna make you do anything else in their presence but smile back. They each have stories to tell me from way before I was born. I love those stories and hearing them, I mean I love looking at old photo albums from before I was born or when I was really small because even if everyone has changed physically by some over time, I still see those happy glints in their eyes even from way before the time I were to know.
My mom always says that even as you grow you should never change the kind of person you are. This is a perfect example of that. I admire my family so much for this simple thing and I was indebted to showing them that when I saw them again. Of course there was a lot of build of for this trip. Mainly was the function for Thulasi that we needed to do in India.
That was a celebration in which we had to
- Shave all of Thulasi’s Hair
- Pierce her ears
B O O M Sounds simple right?
Nah,
you got it all wrong.
My mom told me the reason that in our religion we do this is because the babies hair when it is in the mother’s womb, is brought out into the world along with the bacterias and such from before its birth. Therefore they shave it. From my past experience for my brother I remember him screaming, thrashing, and basically traumatized for the next couple of hours. I was like seven or eight( I honestly don’t remember )and thats basically what I remember. I don’t really know much about the ear piercing stuff though. I need to look more into that to be honest. They pierce you when you’re like a baby. A toddler at that. Infants most of the time I guess. I mean all my friends are all like “oh my gosh you have your ears pierced you’re so lucky. How did you convince your parents to let you? My parents think its too edgy. ” I usually answer with:
“It wasn’t exactly my decision.”
“This was done to me when I was a baby.”
“My religion requires it.”
“also remind me not to meet your parents in person.” ( note the sarcasm )
Then when my friend asks why and all that stuff I have to go into this long tiring rant where I don’t even understand half of what I’m saying. For a while I’ve been thinking of getting a second piercing on one of my ears or something but my parents are like no that is actually dangerous and not necessary for a young lady to do and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Apparently, since I’m a girl, I have to get my nose pierced soon. I still don’t know why and I have to kinda catch up soon on all the stuff thats whirling around. I mean I still don’t know most of the reasons why we do specific things in my religion. Like, why females have to where dots on their foreheads. Or, uh, I can’t think of anything else. Huh thats a great question the scientists can solve; Why can’t Kanmani think straight most of the time.
So called me pigheaded but I’m not the brightest person ever when it comes to paying attention to cryptic, esoteric reasoning that in which half of what I don’t understand. So that basically ends up with me being totally unknowledgeable.
But enough of me ranting uselessly, let me get down to what was going on the day we were leaving.
Alright so my uncle was supposed to pick us up around five or six to drive us to the airport. That entire day both my parents were just a flurry everywhere in and out of the house. Like you would see my mom in the kitchen cleaning and than two seconds you see her, halfway across the house, in my bedroom or something yelling from across the house to put my soiled clothes in the hamper or stow away my sketchbook. And then my brother was probably taking his millionth shower of the day. I don’t know how that kid decides to just randomly take a scorching hot shower no matter what season
Anyway. That was one of those days where I wanted to be like an octopus or something because I felt like everything was being thrown at me all at once.
Mom: KANMANI GET YOUR SISTER SHE’S RUNNING OUTSIDE BY HERSELF GET HER QUICKLY
Dad: KANMANI GET ME SOME CHARGERS AND CABLES FROM THE GARAGE AND PUT THEM IN MY BACKPACK
Madhavan: KANMANI HELP ME CLEAN MY ROOM
Me: you guys I just sat down.
Course I had to do some regulating myself, like help making sure all the weight of our luggage was proper for the flight regulations and in check. I also had to keep tabs on my little sister and brother and make sure they didn’t start a mini decimation anywhere in the house. To me the day dragged on and on and on. But to my parents, well. . .
I don’t think they would’ve agreed.
They were scrambling around the house, like, ballistic balloons being released of air from the bottoms because they weren’t tied. The total opposite from the cool collected mood I seemed to be in. Course to me, the scene was completely hilarious to watch. But my little satire bubble was burst the instant my parents shrill shrieks rang down the hall, calling my name in those exhortatory voices willing me to give a hand in a simple task. Of course that wouldn’t stop me from suppressing mumbles of distaste at their exceedingly frantic behavior. I mean I understood there was a lot to be done before we left for a month but they didn’t have to take it to the point where they barely even had to to just take a seat for about two minutes or something.
Anyway, around five we all took showers one by one. Each of us wearing brand new, comfort clothing to wear so we wouldn’t be uncomfortable in our flight. I mean we would be flying for fourteen hours. That was the flight from San Fransisco to Hong Kong. We would have a two hour layover before we would board again and go straight to Singapore. Which was going to take about three or four hours max.
We all sat around waiting for Sekar peryiappa to arrive( if you don’t remember peryiappa means uncle). He was always the one to drive us to the airport and pick us up from the airport at the end of our trips to India. That day was no different. Except the fact that my dad kept saying that he was late. San Fransisco is basically forty-five drive away from where we live so I didn’t see what to worry about. I mean my dad even said it was going to be reverse commute so there wouldn’t be traffic at all.
My uncle arrived a while later, and since we had made even more changes to our house since the last time he saw us, my dad decided to give my uncle a little tour before he and my parents started to load all the luggage and stuff. I attempted to help, dragging my little sister’s bulky car seat to the porch. With her inside it. I was struggling, it was obvious. I mean I can handle carrying a bag with like twenty or thirty books in them, all hard covers, over one hundred pages in one hand. With another stack of books in the other hand. And yet I can’t handle carrying a car seat with my little baby sister in it with one hand. I am a pathetic person, yeah I know. But I tried.
At on point, peryiappa, amma(that means mom if you forgot), and I were all standing near the trunk. Suddenly we heard this like random buzzing noise coming from one of the duffel bags. My mom dug around for a solid five minutes but still couldn’t find it. We all kinda panicked at that point until my mom dug around a bit more in desperation and managed to find the culprit. The culprit being my dad’s razor. Amma and peryiappa looked at each other with relief and closed up the trunk. My brother and I climbed into the car, tucking our backpacks next our feet. My parents and my sister got in last. Appa decided to drive since peryiappa was probably tired from driving already. Peryiappa gladly let him take the wheel.
Now my brother and I have motion sickness when it comes to like cars or planes. I mean I’m not that bad as long as I don’t get tired or dizzy. But my brother isn’t really the same as me in that case. I mean, unless he’s got some good wind going directly at his face, he doesn’t really stand against the evil doer that is the tiny need to disgorge.
Peryiappa told my dad to pull over so he can get Madhavan a soda or something so he wouldn’t throw up. See this is what I like so much about him. Without thinking, he just does stuff for people like this without even holding account for himself. He doesn’t hesitate for a second before jumping up and pointing out a decent solution. Or going out and pursuing for you himself. And he doesn’t do anything like this by decision. He just does it. No thought. No equivocation. I admire and respect him for this and I think it is one of his best qualities. I don’t have to broadcast it out loud to convince anyone that its true.
As I thought all this, peryiappa came back with a Fanta, a bag of sour candy, and three Hershey’s Bars. My mom asked why he bought the chocolate.
“Its just for the kids during travel. Thats all.”
You can’t retaliate with that. All you should do is try to understand the point I was trying to make. Be a simple human being. A kind one. That is all. I try my best to. I hope I don’t fail to succeed in that. Cause’ I can’t be advising people about something I’m not following myself.
We drove until we arrived to the airport, the adults chattering constantly. We had all the windows open so it felt amazing. My hair was whipping around like ink in the sea. I could barely keep my eyes open because gosh it was powerful. I smelt water from the bay, the sky a bittersweet orange impured with a deep roseate. Seagulls were crooning to each other from the distance. It was perfect. I close my eyes and I just imagine running barefoot on a secluded beach. Sand getting in between my toes, the wind intertwining with my hair. My daydream was obviously to be put on hold because a while later. We arrived at the airport. We unloaded our bags and peryiappa drove of to park before joining inside.
We went straight to check in first. Waiting in the line and stuff. I had a roller bag in hand and my backpack on my shoulders. I kept an eye on my sister in her stroller to make sure she wouldn’t drop her teddy bear on the tile. I mean who knows how dirty the floor of a public building would be. After check in and stuff, we decided to grab something to eat from the food court so we went to a Burger King and my dad ordered burgers. But my dad made a simple mistake and forgot to say no meat for the burgers so when we got them we had to peel of the meat. After we finished up eating, we went to security check. That was a little sad I guess cause we had to say bye to peryiappa. He stayed with us until we couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see us. The security check was okay I guess. I mean not as intimidating before when I was younger and I didn’t know what I was supposed to take off and keep on.
Security check was done. Now all we had to do was wait in the gate for our flight. Which, was another bore of course. I sat their, listening to music, reading the book I brought along. My brother and sister couldn’t keep their eyes off the huge airplanes on the other side of the massive glass walls. Gawking and goofing off being their undoubted specialty of course. About two hours later( I think, my memories fuzzy okay )we were told to board the flight. I was mentally preparing myself for a fourteen hour journey to the depths of the other side of the world.
Like always I chose the window seat, my brother was in the middle, and my little sister and my mom were in the last seat. My dad was next to us, but in a different row. My little sister got a baby seat belt and when we boarded the airplane we were able to pickup little complimentary packets with earbuds, and little adapters to plug into next to the little TV monitor so we can plug in our own headphones or earbuds if we wanted to. I settle into my seat and waited for takeoff. I scrolled through the movies on the monitor searching for something interesting. Mostly they had stuff that got nominated for the Oscars or won and Oscar or something.
I wasn’t really interested in that much because most of the popular movie selections were adult films so being the very grown up person I am;
I click the kids category.
(Okay technically I’m still a kid because I’m only thirteen years old.)
Anyway. It took about fifteen minutes before we took off. As the plane moved along the runway, the flight safety video played. I kinda just like blanked out after that because there’s only so many times you can tell me that my life vest is inflatable. But for the sake of keeping up my knowledge of midair safety, I watched the video and read the the manual, phamplet thingamajig. Plus, the Singapore Airlines flight video had changed, cause the original one they had was super old and
Super boring.
Anyway, our flight was around one something so my eyelids felt like lead. But when the flight started to take off, boy was that a wake up call. I forgot from our last trip, how it feels when you take off from the runway. I mean it just feels like your insides are turning into mush. Then once you’re in the air you have another problem. The air pressure just gets your ears all stuffed up and once it gets normal it pops. I absolutely hate this feeling. That brings me to my next motif.
So before our trip I was always so bubbly about going to flights and airports I mean I would rant about how much I love them and how I wish I was on one etc, etc. But that was like before our trip when I was like eleven. My opinion about flights changed the instant I got onto that plane. It was stuffy, and tight, there was barely any space to maneuver to the seats. And there was always that nagging worry that if I leaned my seat back to get a bit more comfortable, I might squish the person in the seat behind me.
Me: Uh I just want to get a little more comfortable, maybe if I just lean back a little bi-
My Brain: NO
Me: Just a littl-
Brain: NOPE
Me: You annoying chunk of dendrite
It’s funny, I mean I personally found the service really nice I mean all the flight attendants were great and everything. Except I just hated the rest of the experience. I was sore from trying to sleep in abnormal positions. I couldn’t sleep at all. My ears kept getting stuffy, it was either too hot, or too cold, and the seat belt was uncomfortable. Uh, the agony of it all made me want to rip my hair out and scream until I couldn’t anymore. Just thinking of it all makes me nauseous. All I thought about was just reaching Hong Kong.
I looked out the window, clouds and endless blue were all I can see. It was beautifully intimidating, all at the same time. It only made my love of it escalate. What was out there that we couldn’t see. What was hidden in the lumps of heavenly clouds. What was foreseeing us in the infinite blue? What do we not see thats in plain sight? These questions are begging to be answered. The claim how even more urgently to be discovered.
I do believe its time for another adventure.