There is something to be said about the infinite wait that seems to inevitably accompany a flight, especially domestic. No matter how late you leave home, no matter how long you dawdle at the coffee shop in the departure lounge, no matter how many electronic gadgets you carry, the aluminium phallus that we all seem you use more and more, deep vein thrombosis notwithstanding, seems to have this ability to play with the fabric of the space time continuum.
One part of this is, of course, that domestic flights seem to always leave slightly later than the advertised time. Presumably this is because of those of our fellow citizens who leverage connections in the all-powerful military to get themselves checked in before their inevitably tardy arrival at the airport, thus holding up departure. It's not like Karachi airport has a cavernous duty free where people can lose track of time...
The other part of this is the more interesting one, being that time always seems to pass much more slowly on an aircraft. And never more so when, like now, there is a technical glitch (landing gear on the plane has not fully retracted and we have to turn back; I look out of the window and see the Lucky Cement factory, pretty short trip, this). Even without the glitches, just about the best part of flights is that the slower passage of time means you can catch up on your reading or writing, or both in turn if your attention span has been irretrievably impaired by the relentless march of technology.
Flights also provide an ideal opportunity for introspection. This can be a mixed blessing. A flight of any description, especially a short haul flight where there is no planned nap, can be a recipe for disaster if something is weighing heavily on your mind. At such times, I find putting those deep, dark thoughts down on paper, especially in longhand, useful. It is almost like whatever fear is lurking in the back of your mind can do less harm if it is pinned safely down on paper. I wonder how people who don't feel the same way deal with their in-flight demons...
It is the random thoughts, though, that seem to spring up unexpectedly at these times. In fact, it is one such thought that got me started writing right now. As I sat in my seat minding my own business and discouraging conversation through big cans of headphones, I came across news of the postponement of the Beijing Marathon due to the approaching Party convention in that town. And as they do, random thoughts started to lead off from there. I thought of a colleague, who ran his first marathon the year he turned 30, and harboured a dream or running another this year, to mark the ten year anniversary of that event. He is, so he admitted, in no kind of form, but still harbours the dream.
My own dreams carry less of a risk of chafing related injuries. There is the novel that I have promised myself I will finish sometime soon (I hope that it will in time become The Great Pakistani Novel, but as time passes and words fail to accumulate on paper due to my own ennui my certainty is steadily dipping). I have become more touchy about the subject too; I snapped at Pallo the other day when she voiced my own secret thought. Like the Berlin Marathon that is likely going to be left unrun, my long cherished novel may be left unwritten too, unless i get my act together and fast.
What is your long cherished dream that you are not doing enough to fulfil? Don't you owe it to yourself to do more? What will it take?
Those, ladies and laydas, are three damn crucial questions. And it is question three that is the hardest of all. You may well know the answer to that one, as i do when it comes to writing my novel, but then life interferes, just like it did this morning in the undercarriage of PK302. And what you do when that happens is what will define you. Not in the "what will my epitaph say" kind of way ( although in that way too, if you are lucky), but in a more important, and totally internal to yourself, kind of way.
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