JET TRAILS

Hullo! This is Anika Bhuta. Today, I wanted to write about something showing the different perspectives on life, and what better place to express them? This article is written taking inspiration from the airport I live near, and the baggage that comes with it. Without further ado, I give you, Jet Trails.

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I live near an airport, and to say it is a disturbance would be an understatement. Airplanes fly across any time of the day (or night, for that matter); and bring with them an intrusive noise that is impossible to ignore. Not only the noise, every time one of those flying monstrosities passes overhead, it brings with it a shaking of the very concrete that makes up my apartment complex.
This noise is a constant inconvenience that I've dealt with my entire life, but only recently did I discover another perspective on it.

One day, as I sat down at my study table for a gruelling session of algebra, one of the aforementioned  airplanes passed overhead again. I sighed in frustration and walked to the window to close it. Just as I was just about to slam it shut, I noticed one of the jet trails from the source of my annoyance. It traced white patterns in a cloudless and eye-wateringly blue sky. I stood there, transfixed for a moment, and then fell into thought.
I pictured the inside of the plane, with hundreds of people inside. Those hundreds of people must have had hundreds of emotions too.

One person might have been a mother, flying from elsewhere to visit her children. Her first plane journey. A mix of emotions accompanies her. Happiness at her expected reunion; wonder at the city spread like a patchwork quilt underneath her; fear at every spot of turbulence, and so many others.
Another might have been a young hopeful, on her way to university, waiting to start a new life. As she fidgets with her earphones, she ponders the possibilities. Would they like her? Would she be able to cope? How was her little sister? All these questions floated around in her head, not one having a coherent answer.
A tired husband, home for the holidays. Though physically exhausted, his eyes light up when he thinks of his beloved children and how they would exclaim when they saw him home. At the thought of them, he is youthful with a spring in his step again.
The air hostess, sorrowful with separation. She plasters a smile on her face though her chest hurts at the thought of the one she left behind, and the duration of her exile in the sky. She thinks of home as she heads toward destinations already seen and already known. The only redeeming quality is the smile on her customers' faces.
A businessman, with paperwork in hand, scowls as he does the calculations and thinks of life as a balance sheet of profits and losses. This is such a frequent excursion that he has lost all wonder with the scene outside the window. He is not bothered with feelings; as far as he is concerned, emotions cloud judgment.
The pilot, with the thrill and adrenaline in his veins as he does what he loves most. He chases the sun and never looks back. Responsibility accompanies him, and so does fear; but he doesn't let it touch him.

So many feelings, so many lives. So much depends on these airplanes. So much depends on these journeys across the sky. All the hopeful souls, taking off from the City of Dreams, to land in a city that would make their dreams come true. What had been a source of annoyance was now a source of wonder. As I sat next to the window, staring at the jet trails, I now saw a whole new world. A world of beginnings and ends, and a world of everything else.
Everyone on this plane has a story. the endings of these may not have been reached. Some are heading toward a happy ending, some, not so much. And some are just beginning a new chapter.

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