This is the twelfth time I am flying to India in the last
six years. I have flown alone a couple of times, but most of the time we travel
together as a family. The purpose of the travel remains the same—visiting family in
India, with a predictable regularity, especially for the peace of mind of aging parents, both mine (when they were around) and my husband’s. Each time we
take the same Emirates flight—from San Francisco to Dubai, and then from Dubai
to Kolkata, with a generous stopover at the Dubai airport breaking the two legs
of the journey. The Dubai airport lounge now feels like a familiar vacation
spot where you come back again and again. Nothing symbolizes our immigrant life
more than this acquired comfort at an airport lounge in a country that, despite
being superbly welcoming, is neither our birthplace, nor our adopted workplace.
As I try to analyze the source of this strange sense of
comfort, I realize something profound. This journey is the only legitimate
break where I feel temporarily unencumbered from the professional demands in
the US and the personal duties in India, both of which I like immensely, but there is no denying that this dual existence keeps me stretched thin between the two continents.
This realization is more poignant this time, perhaps because
of the cumulative effect of three deaths of three beloved parents in India in
the last four years. Each time death, or the prospect of it, loomed in the background during the
journey, but each time in a slightly different way. The saga started in 2012. In
December 2012, I was flying to India knowing that my mother’s cancer was
rapidly deteriorating. But I didn’t imagine I would receive a phone call from
my siblings during the Dubai transit that mom had slipped into a coma, quite
unexpectedly, while I was flying from San Francisco to Dubai. She passed away the day I landed in India.
Three years later, I was again flying through Dubai, knowing that my father was
in the hospital due to complications from an angioplasty, but at least he was
stable at that point. (He died two weeks later). Today, I am flying with my son—my husband is already in India—knowing
that my mother-in-law has already passed away a few days earlier. So I know
that there is no escaping, or even delaying, death this time. I have to face the
reality that I have lost a parent—again—even before the first anniversary of my
father’s passing.
When you have to preserve all your fortitude to bravely deal
with deep personal losses over and over again, you appreciate the temporary
refuge offered by a transit airport more than ever. Thank you Dubai for being
the true oasis that you project yourself to be.
