Adarsh had a ticket to Seattle clasped in his hand.  He was following the directions painted on the green boards, trying to get to Gate 24 C. There were big screens showing the departure and arrival time of every flight. He had already looked at his flight details in one of those screens; the schedule hadn’t changed, but he still had two more hours. He didn't want to miss the flight so he gave himself enough time for the security check because he had been selected for an extra screening each time. He had stopped complaining or blaming his ethnicity. Early morning it was, there were not many people in the airport, so he got out of the screening faster than he anticipated. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "You never really asked me." He read on the little instant messaging window. His heart jumped high with excitement; he felt his heart touching the back of his front ribs. He could also feel the blood pumping through the veins in his neck. "I did" he immediately typed on his little phone. As soon as he sent it, he got a reply, "No, you didn't." "But my heart asked your heart and it got an answer." He didn't even have to think to come up with that. "What did your heart ask?" "Your heart knows it, ask your heart!", Adarsh was still a little hesitant to ask her explicitly. "What did my heart say?" she asked. "It said 'yes.'" "Oh really? I didn't know that. Now can you say what your heart asked my heart?" "Do you love me?" He could see that she was typing and deleting frequently on the messenger. His heart almost came to a standstill. "Of course I do, I am so happy I am crying right now. It is the happiest day of my life" she said. He couldn’t tell if she was serious - he couldn’t read her emotions through the messenger program. "I am very happy too." He said. "Love, will you call me? I cannot wait to hear your voice" Now he knew she was not playing around. It was the first time in 22 years any girl had addressed him as her love. He jumped out of his bed. He felt that her acceptance to his love was too good to be true. He had never met Anamika in person, but had only seen her in pictures. All he knew was that she looked beautiful. He thought she looked so beautiful that he compared her beauty with the beauty of an angel. He remembered the moment he first saw her picture in a website. He had approached her through an email and they had started chatting with each other not long after. "I'll call you, honey. Just a second." His whole body pumped up as he wrote this. "Alright sweetie, I am so excited to talk to you." He dialed the number of the cybercafé that could connect him to the US from Nepal. He had been studying in the US for three years then. He was back in Nepal just to visit his parents. Adarsh and Anamika were living in different states and used to chat and talk to each other on the phone frequently. To be more specific, they spent almost five hours a day together, one way or the other. The operator asked "What number do you want to dial?" He gave her number to the operator. "Just a second sir," the operator said. After ten seconds, he could hear a ringing tone. His heart was pounding and he didn't know what to say. "Hello," he heard a soft voice; it was softer than it used to be. "Hello, Anamika, honey, how are you?" He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to expect either. ".............." He didn't hear anything on the other end. He got nervous; he felt like he just did something terribly wrong by asking her a mundane question like "How are you?" "I love you baby, why aren't you speaking?" He thought he corrected his mistake this time. "I love you too....... I a..m s...o happy. Promise me you will never leave me." She was sobbing as she was speaking. He was prouder than a king now as he could hear Anamika expressing her love for him. But her sobbing amazed him; it was something he could never justify. "Why are you crying honey?" his next dumb question. "It is the happiest moment of my life, I couldn't control myself, aren't you happy?" he instantly figured out that she was the emotional kind. "Of course I am happy. I can do anything for my love. Now we are together, nobody is closer to me than you. No force can separate us." For a second he forgot that he had never met her in person. "Oh, you are so sweet. I am so happy that you are with me. When will you come to meet me?" "Just twenty days, honey, but I want to meet you right now. I wish I could fly right away, come to Seattle, and wrap you in my arms." He forgot the reason why he was in Nepal. Everything looked so trivial to him. "Still twenty more days? Cannot it be less? I want to be with you, I cannot live a second without you now." All of a sudden she was suffocating in his absence. "I know, honey, but I have to spend some more time with my parents. Moreover, I have some business to finish before I leave Nepal."    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It was just 7 in the morning so the airport wasn't very crowded. He hadn't slept the whole night, and he wasn’t tired either. He was making plans for the day with Anamika, online till 3am.  Then he spent rest of the time packing his stuff, and restlessly waiting for the night to be over. There were beautiful girls in the airport passing by but he didn't look at any of them like he used to. He thought none of them were nearly as beautiful as the girl he was going to meet that day. He was anxious as he had been looking forward to meeting her for almost a year. The big moment was so close that he could feel it in the air. The song "She loves you" by Beatles was playing in his ears. He had a video iPod with him, which he bought during last year’s black Friday sale, online. He didn't like the idea of waking up early and waiting in line to get something cheap at a store. He bought almost all his needs online. "Passengers going to Seattle, Platinum members, please board now." He muted his player to listen to the announcement. He took out his phone and composed a new message, which read: “I am boarding the plane now, I will see you when I get to Seattle." He sent it to her expecting her to read it as she gets up. He was more comfortable texting people than talking with them. He always felt that the instant messaging in the internet and sending text messages in the phone was a very easy way of communication than talking on the phone or meeting people in person. It hid awkward silences, and one could take enough time before saying anything, he argued. He thought that these means of communication had young people bound together. "Passengers of zone 1 through 3, please board now". He didn't hear the announcement very well, but he went to stand in line anyway. He approached the counter, "Sir, you are in zone 6, please step aside; we are still boarding through zone 3." He smiled at the lady, apologized, and waited for his turn. Finally after five long minutes, he was standing in front of the lady at the counter. "Sir, you had been selected for the random check, did you go through that?" "Yes I did, and they checked me thoroughly." "I guess they forgot to stamp the ticket. Sir, I apologize, but will you please step aside." "But I already went through the check," he tried to persuade her. "Sir, I cannot let you in the airbus without the stamp. I will have to call the airport security" "Alright", he said. He looked frustrated but he kept his composure. The lady at the counter spoke into her walky-talky, "A gentleman here had been selected for the screening but his ticket is not stamped." "Gate?" A man spoke form the other side, followed by the static noise of the walky-talky. "24C, the plane will be taking off in 15 minutes." "We will send someone right away," the voice on the other end replied. "Sir, please take a seat. You will have to be rechecked." He could see people staring at him. He waited by the counter, everybody had already boarded except the latecomers. After a while, three security men came to the gate. They were in blue shirts, black tie, and had a golden badge on their chest. "He is the gentleman", the lady pointed at Adarsh. "Sir, sorry for the inconvenience, but we will have to search you again."  The oldest looking man said to him. "Its alright... but.. Its alright," he wanted to say more, but he didn't think it would make any difference. "Will you hand me your bag, sir" the youngest of them asked. He was the most cheerful looking among all of them. Adarsh handed his bag to him. "And your shoes please,” the young guy pointed at his shoes. He could see people looking at him. He could feel that they were horrified.  He could even see some of them whispering to each other. "Will you spread your arms and legs, sir," the third man asked him politely. He did accordingly. This man looked quiet and down. He looked like a robot that did his job sincerely. But it looked like the human inside him didn't enjoy what he did. The man ran the metal detector over his body. Now, the man started to run his hands from his toe to thigh, his torso, and his arms. Adarsh stared at the patch on his shirt’s sleeve with an American flag and an eagle. He also noticed the black piece of cloth on his shoulders that had TSA written on it. "Will you take a seat please", the man said to him pointing at the row of seats. The man started searching his feet, heels and toes. "All clean," the guy who was checking his bag and shoes returned. His bag was open, with his iPod by it.  His shoes were on the seat next to them. "Sorry about the trouble sir, we do apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience," the older man said. "Take it easy, and have a nice day, bud," the younger one said casually. Somehow he felt that tone was more pleasurable than the older man's. "Not a problem dude, you guys have fun too" he said. The younger guy smiled at him and they left. The quiet man didn't say a word. By then, he was the only one left to board the plane. As he passed through the aisle of the plane, he noticed that everybody was looking at him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He had taken his PDA phone to Nepal with him, it could do more than the desktop computer he had at his house. It operated on Windows Mobile 5 with MSWord, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, and MSN messenger built in. The phone had a three inch screen, with a high resolution display. Provided enough internet speed, it could open any fancy website; it could even play YouTube videos. He was proud of his phone. For the first few days in Nepal, he couldn't make use of the phone. It was locked by the service provider of the phone in the US. But his brother-in-law could manage to call the service provider and get the unlock key for the phone, which made the phone usable in Nepal. Internet in Nepal was expensive, but cheap data plans could save him a lot of money. He bought a SIM card that went with his phone, just for instant messaging. Now, he could chat in his phone for almost as cheap as ten cents a day. He could chat with her all day long now. He became very efficient in typing with his thumbs. His typing speed on the phone compared with his typing speed on a full-sized keyboard. The auto-learn feature of his phone also made his typing faster in the phone. He frequently used Nepali words written in English alphabets while chatting, such as ‘maya’(love) or ‘samjhirachu’(remembering you). His phone learnt almost all commonly used Nepali words. He was proud of his phone and his typing skills. He knew he wouldn’t be in a relationship with such a lovely girl, if his phone hadn’t facilitated the communication.   The average time difference between Nepal and America is 12 hours. So, nighttime in Nepal is daytime in the US. She used to work at a fast food joint all day long, making sandwiches. So, she couldn't chat while at work. She couldn’t even talk on the phone, or read text messages. Hence, he couldn’t be in touch with her during night time in Nepal. So, every night, he looked at her pictures on his laptop and wrote some romantic emails to her. He used to say how beautiful she looked in this picture, how gorgeous she looked in that one. He particularly looked at a picture of her holding two stuffed animals. He thought she looked the most beautiful on that one. He had sent one of those stuffed animals as a gift to her. He sent it to her just before he set off to Nepal, so that she had something that reminded her of him. After a few hours of sleep, he would wake up and wait for her. Whenever the messenger prompted something, he immediately looked at his phone hoping it was her. If it wasn't her, he would toss the phone on his bed in utter disappointment. "Adarsh, will you leave your phone alone and talk to us?" His mother said peeking through the half opened door.   "I am talking to you mom, what are you talking about?" he said jokingly. "No, you are always looking at the phone, as if it were a mirror.”  He smiled at her innocence. He smiled because she thought looking at mirror that often would make more sense. “By the way, a lady called for you yesterday, she was saying she was the mother of your friend from USA, a girl named Anamika. Who is that girl and why is her mom calling you? What’s going on?" She teased him with a series of questions. Obviously, she was curious about the girl. "Really?" He said, "She is a friend of mine, I have a package for her mom," he said. She had mailed him some stuff for her family when he was in the US. He had to deliver those while he was in Nepal. Actually, it was him who had asked her if she had anything for her family that he could take with him. He thought being acquainted with her parents would make things easier between them. Also he had bought a handbag for her mother, as per her request, for the occasion of Mother’s Day. "Who is she? Anybody special?" his mom didn’t give up. "No", he lied, "but I like her ...here's her picture," he just had to turn the screen around to show his mom how his beloved girl looked like. "She is beautiful, is she the same caste as we are?" His mom was a conservative Hindu, who believed people should only marry within their own caste. "Yes she is, but she is just my friend. Don't start telling everybody about her," he warned his mom. "I won't", she assured. "Are there more pictures of her?" He had hundreds, but he showed her just a couple more. To be continued........ Last edited: 12-Feb-09 08:23 PM Last edited: 12-Feb-09 08:24 PM Last edited: 12-Feb-09 08:43 PM Last edited: 12-Feb-09 09:48 PM Last edited: 12-Feb-09 09:48 PM