Life, as it goes.

Good times speed away. The day of departing had come. We had to go back by ferry to Singapore, from the ferry terminal we had to go to the airport. Sadly we got a seat in the morning ferry due to which we would reach way earlier than we needed to. Our flight was at 7:20 p.m. but due to this ferry gadbad we reached Changi Airport at around 1:00 p.m. Except for the queasiness in the ferry due to a very choppy sea everything had gone perfectly. We even had a taxi with a grinning Rangacharian waiting for us.

At the airport, we checked in by 2:00 p.m. The breakfast had been heavy so neither of us wanted to eat lunch. People had told me that there was so much to see at the airport that we would not feel bored inspite of having 5 hours to spend before the flight. We checked in the baggage and were waiting in the immigration line when someone called out,

"Arre Rishabh? Kya baat hai. Yahan bhi?" It was V and S behind him with the trolley full of hand baggages from the shopping they had done.
"Ab toh seriously kuchh pichhale janam types hai, nahi?" R commented smiling.

Both S and I started to apologise together about missing each other that night. They had also waited for us but somehow in the crowd we could not meet each other. They were boarding a flight to Lankawi, Malaysia for the second phase of their honeymoon, they were going to be out for another week. We chatted on till their flight was called and saw them off. S said she felt good at having someone to see them off in a foreign country.

Changi Airport really is an interesting place. The duty-free shopping was quite amazing. Comparitively cheap jewellery, booze, chocolates, electronics etc. etc. We bought a few things that had been asked for by friends, like tiger balm. I spotted a movie theatre and headed for it. It was not really a movie theatre but was a small nook with about 30 seats and a home theatre screen playing Star movies. I sat watching the first Pierce Brosnan 007 movie. R went roaming.

He suddenly came back excited. He had found an orchid garden and pulled me away from a very interesting scene of the movie. By 5:00 we had seen almost the whole of the terminal and I was tired of walking so decided to rest my feet when I suddenly saw a few people gathered around, as if waiting for something. Now this was the first time I had seen people waiting in Singapore so I went near and to my amazement, there stood foot massager machines where people were relaxing their tired feet.

"Walk and walk around our airport and if you get tired there's the foot massager. God, they think of everything." R remarked and perched himself on one of the machines. I sat opposite on a chair reading, after a while I also sat on it and felt the muscles relax. It was really good. R wanted to buy one for home.

Time went by as it always does, relatively slowly but a bit of this and a little of that later, our flight was called and we took our boarding passes. R was looking at his passport with pride.

"Finally its filled with stamps, I am so pleased." he said. "Cheap thrills nahi?"

The flight was delayed by about half an hour, at Mumbai airport we jerked back to our reality as there was a mile long line for baggage which took almost half an hour to come. A harsh customs officer mistook someone else's bag as mine and asked me to step aside rudely to which I snapped back saying he got it wrong, how quickly we get into our elements na? We walked for about 15 minutes without a clue as to how to get an auto and finally getting one, argued with the autowala not to charge higher, "Hum idhar ke hi hai, thik se bolo." Then bumped our way home, watching the regular sights of Mumbai's garbage and slums. As I dropped R off he said,

"Its good to be home, in this noise and pollution. I wouldn't trade this for a 1000 Singapores."
"I agree. India is home." I smiled back.

I stepped into my apartment at 11:30 p.m. and said, "Haaaasssh." (A typical gujju expression of relaxation and peace.) and realised I not said this anywhere else but here. Home is where Haaassssh is.