Going Places
The airport is looking strange at 5:00 in the morning. The guards at the gate have not bothered to check the ticket, the salesperson at the Port lounge did not seem to be in his usual hurry to spill coffee on my shalwar kameez, the women in the rest room look rested and resigned to being there at that hour. A whiff of Channel's 'Chance' takes me by surprise and I look around to trace its source. A young woman in her early 20's from Jet Airways is changing into her uniform . I have had the opportunity of being served by her in a couple of domestic flights and she's one of the most jazzy stewardesses I have seen in my life. At 5:00 she is as plain as I am, with the plainest expression on her face, no different than mine. I quickly conclude that it must be the hour that de-beautifies people and that perhaps, early mornings and airports do have flexible faces and passions.
Meantime, my mind ticks away counting down to the last possible second of being efficient in a supermodern universe where the race is open to all in transit, journeying from one point to the other, making trips to meeting people, sealing business deals while most of the work is done on board, over a breakfast tray served with stale croissants, sad looking peaches, and a couple of squid-like scrambled eggs.
By 5:15, I decide to look at each of the slides of travelers, sandwiched between bordering skies and long immigration queues…. The cash dispenser gives us money, the duty free gives us the ultimate mall experience, the book shop offers leafing through the latest paperbacks, the Mac/Subway offers even the choice of a whole wheat bread making their ultimate point of Capitalism: consumers are made to feel that their welfare is what matters most to the Macs and Subs of the world. Then we rid ourselves of the luggage and face the question of being registered and sorted out at every single counter that pops up en route to the lounge. The lounge, if one's lucky to be traveling business class in France's Charles de Gaulle Or New York's Club Lounge, then that temporary home may even have adjustable seat with digitally controlled panel, along with facilities to make calls, make use of the photocopiers/scanners, play games et al. What surfaces from this comfort scene is simply the sense of home. If only we could control our minds and program it to take a break from familiarity and if only we could do with just more modern options instead of opting for our routine which only wants the old duvets, the old beds, the old aroma in our living places, world would be simpler. The supermodernity that we tread upon in travels, has sleep, appetite, knowledge, hygiene, entertainment and very often, even companionship guaranteed. The space becomes an inner space and while one travels, the whole being simply defeats borders that are dulled by cartographic dimensions and transcends to the next level of evolving into a newer one with the features of the alien land gradually settling in. On board, a traveler invariably notices a piece on the best destinations to travel to and that routinely happens to be a heavenly island in an exotic setting. The mind seems firmer in space than on the ground at that point. Handling nostalgia is relatively easier for us as most of our memories are frozen into photo gallery folders on our lap tops. This is the time when travelers like us are finally alone and this is the moment we cherish the most. This space is what Marc Auge, the French anthropologist calls a "non-place" and this is what we adhere to and I personally celebrate 'Here' and 'Now'.
Then what do we do with history? History surely cannot be re written in a transit lounge…Berlin Wall, the Beatles, Gulf War, USSR's evaporation into the thin air, '71…? The revolutionizing moment had already happened and often we indulge in over-investment of meanings and happenings. This excess overload of events that link our past to our heels, and this expanding and multiplying image of time often unsettle us. In fact, the contradiction of not being able to address history and 'now' is a puzzle that supermodernity cannot solve. In moments, through satellites and aerials on our hamlets, we are subjected to a spatial generosity that does not really match the world in which we live in, but it does make us re think about our space. Is home only an "invenire", a Latin word for invention? Does reality lie in where we are or where we travel to or where we are in transit? Does birth only assign us to a residence? If Identity requires minimal stability, and if we do go back to our anthropological places, then do we not only live through what we are no longer? As much as monuments mark places, don't I mark my own space as well? The signboards in my neighborhood make my business card, my itineraries reflect my tomorrows, my spatial exposure defines my worth. If history is never erased and if my current transit position is never completed, then what and where am I? My confusion then reduces my travel to a photo gallery of images that my gaze quickly picks up on. As a traveler, I seek no home as my transit lounge in Kolkata/New York/ Paris offers me a temporary anonymity accompanied by a relative sense of liberation. While I am freed of my baggage, I rest and look forward to the next on board meal, incomplete with messy menus and indiscriminate announcements, but the flight takes me away from my mundane today's and I greedily give into my sense of non-identity only labeled by the boarding card and the passport that have my name on them. My 'now' has become a moment 'elsewhere' as I am now speeding through clouds, enjoying my 25-minute ride to Dhaka, completely unsure of what awaits me "home."
Rubana is a Bangladeshi poet pursuing higher studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
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