Do you believe in mind power? I do !
The human mind is capable of a lot of things. Our sense organs can be controlled by our minds. Food that you would normally go nowhere near on a regular day, tastes tolerable when you are a little hungry and wonderful when you are starving. Its all in the mind my friend(s).
Airports are horrible places. The only place worse than an airport is the inside of an aeroplane itself. Yet it looked like paradise on earth for me that day ! The day had finally arrived. Like a disgraced man fleeing his country, I was leaving the country of abundance in the most furtive manner possible. Call me superstitious or by any other name, but I didn’t want to go through the entire pain of informing everyone about my departure, only to call them a week later from another state in the same country and explaining the reason for my staying back.
Like all times, my olfactory organ was functioning at its peak capacity. The stench slowly shifted from that of rancid butter from popcorn (America’s national ‘low-fat’ snack, that is eaten in buckets !) to some sort of burnt flesh in the airport restaurants, from that strange undefinable, initially-intolerable, gradually-acceptable smell inside the plane, to the indescribable-yet-sort-of-pleasant smell of the hand-wash inside the airplane restroom (what an economy in space !!), from the gut-wrenching smell of airplane food (garlic to cover all rotten smells and also to numb the cells responsible for the sense of smell!) to the sickening and torture-inflicting stench of sweat of the co-passenger who had boarded in London and was blissfully unaware of the havoc she was causing on people’s sense organs and who probably thought that deodorants are only for models on TV. And finally the most welcome stench of all - the stench of sweat released by numerous bodies tired of over 24 hours of travel and suddenly exposed to the now-infamous Chennai’s hot and humid weather! The smell of anticipation of meeting the loved ones, of fear of receiving all baggage in a safe condition, of tension to get through the green channel, without being detected for that DVD player hidden safely in layers of clothing, and finally the lovely smell of the outside - a heady mixture of petrol, people and love ! With that smell , I knew I was finally home !!
