Chicago O’Hare International Airport is one of my favorite places in the world, I cannot shake the little girl who looked ahead in wonder at the the tunnel of hanging flags, the world’s colors against a white ceiling, leading to translucent glass panes that lead to runways to new worlds. I navigate O’Hare like a playground, but when I make my way to Etihad Airways’ gate I am lost, greeted by a multitude of people standing in disarray eager to board a full flight.
While I am no stranger to international travel, a flight across the world to South East Asia suddenly seemed daunting. Maybe I couldn’t handle this, maybe as everyone had warned me, the people and the traffic, the busybody life in a cosmopolitan city, versus the cold environment that bred me, really would be too much. Could I find my way in India, would I enjoy it? But, India was still far away,
“Hi, Ani, Hi I’m Ani”
A gentle voice whispers beside me. Caught in a frenzy to settle into my seat, I remove layers of jackets, sweaters and scarves that shield me from the Chicago’s freezing weather, temperature that clings to a lone 0. My ears and eyes perk up in every direction to finally see the young woman staring at me as she spoke. I smile, embarrassed at my latent response time, and surprised at the forward, beady eye introduction of my plane companion, who just as quickly returns to arranging her belonging, purse, diaper bag, baby blankets and children’s back pack into the tight space underneath the seats in front of us, barely allowing herself any leg rooom.
As I look around I catch pairs of eyes staring at me, my complexion, age and singularity give me away, and I realize that throughout my travels I will stand out, a lone dichotomy beside the Indian families, backpacking couples, and business executives. I check my watch, it’s a quarter to 9p.m. and frozen ice on the tarmac has delayed us for half an hour. Fatigue weighs heavy on my eyelids but hunger nudges me awake. I breathe deeply against the onset of claustrophobia of a still moving plane, and muster a cautious smile whenever anyone’s eyes fall upon me,14 hours to Abu Dhabi, the first and and longest flight to start the trip, hours caught between time zones, between worlds I do not yet know.
I look over at Ani, she is struggling to change her little boy into pajamas for the long flight.
“What’s your name?” I ask as he squirms in her arms.
“Chocklo, she says. He has a bit of speech delay,” she reveals with a shy smile.
“Hi Chocklo, you’re so brave to make the long trip,” I offer encouragingly, wondering why Ani is traveling alone with her young son.
“Yes, we are traveling from Florida, it’s so cold here, do you live in Chicago? Ani asks.
I think about my mother, the trips she made with all four of us, myself and three brothers, to Mexico when we were young, the video footage of the time witness of her sainthood.
“I do, I hate the cold.” I respond, furiously shaking my head in disapproval of my home city, cursed by Siberian winds. Yet, speaking to Ani brings me comfort, a warmth shared between strangers traveling side by side for 14 hours. Having parted from my mother at the departure gate, Ani offers a motherly and sisterly touch I find myself grateful to have encountered.
Ani’s English isn’t very good, and through great effort I speak slowly, cautiously, I find I want to make her feel comfortable and secure, although she has her son with her, she is also taking on a journey all her own, and one which had not only begun hours, but years before mine did.
“Where are you traveling to?”
“Chennai,” she perks up.
“I smile and nod, “oh yes I know where that is.” I hold back my own excitement and details of my trip, my best friend’s wedding in Bangkok and my week in India, and listen to Ani share about her family, her voice shakes and breaks, rescued by smiles and the calm confidence of a women who has grown up faster than the world intended her too.
Ani is traveling for three months for her brother’s wedding, her second trip home to India in the past seven years since she moved to live in the United States. My mind scrambles with questions, did she move for her husband’s career? What does he do, academia, software? Cliches ring through my mind, and though it doesn’t appear so, does Ani work? Does his family live here, does she live with a close community of American-Indians? What was it like to move to a country foreign in climate, politics, language, food and society? What of her parents, did she wish for her mother’s help after the birth of her only son? I quiet down the budding journalist in me, I listen, lend my silence to capture her story. I wonder how often she tells it. I question, why I have never approached my own mother with these same queries.
When our meals arrive Ani reaches into one of her many bags, she pulls out tightly packed tupperware with home made Indian dishes.
“Do you like spices?” She asks, as she opens a small condiments container with red chili powder and reaches over to place some on my dish. She offers me homemade basmati rice, raised in a culture where you never turn down food, and starved, exaggerated so, from awaiting an abnormally late dinner, I accept her gesture wishing I knew the word for “Thank You” in Hindi.
memories stitched in denim 