Homecoming…

When do you finally realise that you are going home?

1. When you book a cab to come at 3 AM for a 5 25 AM flight and play music in your laptop in full volume since midnight so that you don’t sleep off.

2. When your friend-cum-fellow passenger turns up with a 10 seater Chevrolet Tavera for two of you and looks as puzzled as you because apparently he booked a 4 seater Tata Indica.

3. When, all the while, you think that both of you are flying by Jet Airways and on reaching the airport, you realise that your friend-cum-fellow passenger is flying by Indigo.

4. When you go till the Jet Airways Departure Terminal only to realise that you, too, are flying by Indigo.

5. When you bump into another friend in the airport looking ruffled and irritated because he and 3 others had to squeeze themselves in a 4 seater Tata Indica which came to pick them up instead of a 10 seater Chevrolet Tavera.

6. When the view outside your window pane transforms slowly from a dark night into a lilac dawn and finally into a bright morning, filling you with a sense of  contentment which comes only when you are bound for home sweet home.

7. When you spend the first half of your flight fighting about sharing cab bill, food bills etc. with your friend-cum-fellow passenger and the second half playing Bingo and Cross and Zeros.

8. When, as soon as your first flight touches down, you bid a hurried goodbye to your friend-cum-fellow passenger and dash across the Arrival Terminal to the Security Check, just because your next flight will take off exactly one hour later.

9. When you again find yourself at a window seat in your next flight but, unfortunately, you desperately need to pay a visit to the restroom.

10. When you finally reach your place and you suddenly realise that you are going to get killed by your younger brother because you forgot to get his favourite airplane chicken sandwich.

The perfect homecoming…