My co-passenger this evening on the flight from Jodhpur to Delhi was a super energetic, 6-year-old boy, Amay. Originally, I had all plans of sleeping throughout the 3 hour long journey because I hadn’t slept for the last 2 days, but of course, his highness Amay, had different plans. He wanted to know everything from Mom & dad. He wanted to know how does an airplane fly to how is it different from the birds, why can’t he touch the sky if he’s in the sky & so many more questions that struck Sir Amay in less than 20 minutes. By now, I had given up on my plans to sleep & chose to introduce myself to Amay.
We shook hands, he asked me how old am I, in which school am I, do I watch cartoons or do I just read newspapers like his parents. After all the questions were asked & obviously answered. Amay thought he should also know my name. He asked me, “Umm....what’s your name?, My name is Amay, I’m six years old & I will be seven years old in January.” Our introduction was done, we were officially friends now. And thus began our gaming spree.
We played Stone-paper-scissors, discussed how adults who read newspapers are so boring, there’s nothing to colour in the newspaper, why does it even exist!! There’s hardly any space to draw either, it’s such a waste. Mutual grievances of being forced to eat green vegetables, drinking a glass of milk each day were also tabled for discussion.
Then came the best part, the window view game. We named clouds, wondered together why they are only white in colour and not in purple (his favourite color) or green (my favourite colour). We also had quite a few questions regarding the shapes and sizes of the clouds, which obviously none of us had answers to, so we just exchanged our questions. Probably, hoping that one day, some day one of us will find answers.
Some clouds looked like a huge roll of cotton, some were in shape of an elephant & to believe Amay one particular cloud resembled Chotta Bheem too! We spent more than an hour with clouds, giving them all our attention and surrendering our imagination to the clouds which we wish were in purple or green colour, nonetheless both of us agreed that the clouds should be left the way they are as they won’t listen to us.
Phew! Game change. Now we have a big chocolate and so we talk about how chocolates are the best thing in the world. How we can have chocolates all the time rather than our boring dal-roti etc. Why doesn’t Ma give me chocolates everyday, Amay asks me. To which I reply, my Ma doesn’t give me chocolates either. He expresses solidarity by saying let’s share this before it melts, we eat the chocolate. With each bite of chocolate we have a verse to share with each other. You see, we are eating a chocolate, something that both of us love.
We talk about how sweetness of the chocolate is amazing, how the wrapper of 5 star would be if we made it, (oh yes! We’ve made designs for a chocolate wrapper) how wonderful life would be if we could sleep-eat-drink chocolates all the time. During this discussion, Amay also finalises that he’s going to distribute Perk on his birthday. Voila! He screams and tells his parents “Papa Ma, I’m going to give Perk in school”, his parents nod & try to tell him to sit down & talk softly. The entire aircraft by now knows that Amay is going to distribute Perk in his school.
By now, we have also discussed how schools are a shit place & we hate it. He tells me about his favourite maam, I tell him about my favourite school memory.
It’s landing time, we fasten our seat belts, sit straight and count till we touch the ground. The plane touched the ground at 198. We counted. Together.
As we get ready to get down, a co passenger, a man who looks 40-50 years old, comes to us, gives us one perk each, we unitedly thank him. And walk towards the aero bridge.
Amay’s Dad & Mom thank me for keeping their tiny bomb busy during the flight, I thank Amay for his company. We shake hands, promise each other to write to the other person if we found answers to our cloud queries.
He waves, I wave, we go our ways.
