The Governor, the Child, and a Mouse
My 19-hour flight from Islamabad to New York
Just as I was about to leave for Islamabad airport in the late afternoon to catch an evening flight to Abu Dhabi and onward to New York, a fierce windstorm hit the city, turning everything dark and stirring up dark thoughts in my mind.
Would the flight take off on time? If not, will I be able to catch the connecting flight to New York or spend the night at the airport or in some random hotel? These and many more thoughts assailed my mind. I even considered canceling my flight. To calm myself, I took an anti-anxiety pill and left home for the airport.
By the time I reached the airport, the storm had died down, and the sky had cleared enough for the incoming flight from Abu Dhabi to land and then take off back to Abu Dhabi on time. Many things we worry about don’t happen.
The journey from Islamabad to New York, with a three-hour layover in Abu Dhabi, takes about 19 hours. Spending those hours on the plane can be challenging for most people, especially those who can’t sleep on a flight. I’m one of them. Finding an interesting person to talk to always helps, and I found one across the aisle.
He was dressed in a jacket and tie. I immediately recognized him. I had seen him on TV and in newspapers. He had been a governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP). I said a polite hello to him. He warmly returned my greeting and seemed friendly enough to talk to. We entered a tentative conversation across the aisle about where we were going and then gradually moved to other topics.
Since the governor of KP is also the chief executive of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), I was curious to know his views on FATA’s special status and whether or not it should be merged with KP province, a popular topic of political discussion in Pakistan these days. So, I asked him about his views.
He immediately warmed up to the subject. It seemed I had asked him his favorite question. He asked me to move over to the empty seat next to him so that we could talk more easily, which I did.
He spoke at length, with passion, against the merger of FATA with KP. He wanted the status quo to remain, including the old laws, both formal and traditional, that governed the people of the tribal areas, with some modifications. I was not entirely convinced by his reasoning but listened patiently.
He said he had also written a paper on the subject and would gladly send me a copy if I gave him my address. Since I couldn’t find a piece of paper, I wrote my address on a paper napkin that the stewardess had given me earlier, along with a glass of orange juice; I handed the address to the governor. He read it, unfolded the napkin, tore off its blank half, folded the remaining half with the address, and carefully put it in his jacket’s inner pocket. I was impressed with his meticulousness.
We disembarked at Abu Dhabi, said goodbye to each other, and proceeded to our respective lounges. He was going to London. I never received the paper the governor had promised, but our conversation helped me pass the three hours rather quickly.
I spent the layover at Abu Dhabi airport drinking lemon mint tea, checking and sending messages on my phone — and watching people. Watching people at airports can be an interesting study of human behavior. I especially envy the people who can fall asleep sitting in their chairs using their carry-on luggage as a footrest.
It was past midnight. The flight to New York took off on time, but spending the next 13 hours on the plane was not a comforting thought.
A 4-year-old blond child came to give me company this time. Soon after the seat belt signs were turned off and the flight steadied, the child freed himself from his young mother’s lap across the aisle and started moving up and down the dimly lit cabin, examining people in their seats. After making one or two rounds of the aisle, he gingerly walked towards me, studied me carefully, and grinned. I grinned back and, to amuse him, made funny faces at him. He giggled and darted to his mother. He soon returned with a paper and pencil and gave them to me. He had scribbled a few random lines on the paper and wanted me to draw something for him.
I had never been good at drawing. The only thing I learned to draw as a schoolchild was a mouse. Most children in my class did it for fun. I proceeded to draw a mouse for my young acquaintance.
I drew a large Urdu numeral <, 7, which would become the mouse’s snout, then attached two Urdu 8s ٨٨ to the upper leg of the numeral <, which would be the mouse’s ears. Then, I drew the mouse’s body, simply a balloon lying on its side. To the balloon, I attached two feet underneath and a tail. A dot in the snout, representing the eye, completed the picture. I also signed it.
As I drew, the child watched me intently. He seemed amused by the final result. He took the sheet and pencil from me, scrutinized it, giggled, and darted back to his mother, handing the paper to her. As she examined my drawing, I could see a faint smile on her face but couldn’t tell what she thought of it. She then took the pencil from the child, did something with the sketch, and returned it to him. The child came running back to me with the edited sketch. The mother had added whiskers to the mouse’s snout, which I had not. She was right. A mouse is never without whiskers.
The child and the mouse kept me occupied for some time, but then the pill took over, the pill that I had taken before starting my journey in Islamabad to overcome anxiety. I couldn’t resist sleep anymore. I pulled my seat into a bed, covered myself with a blanket, turned off the lights, and slept. I kept drifting in and out of sleep, but when I woke and looked at the flight path on the TV screen, only three hours were left to JFK. I must have slept a long time, the longest ever on a flight.
Passing the next three hours looked easy. I decided to watch a movie. After fiddling with the movie menu, I chose an old movie, ‘Chocolat.’ The story was set in a fictional village in France where people closely adhere to religious traditions. A young, attractive, single mother of a six-year-old girl, who happens to be not a believer in spiritual traditions, moves to the village. She is a chocolatier and opens a chocolate shop during Lent, the period preceding Easter when the Christian Church is devoted to fasting and abstinence. Among her other “deviations,” she wears more colorful clothes than the village women. The village mayor doesn’t like her nonconformist ways of life and uses the parish priest to turn the folks against her, but the woman stands her ground.
Ultimately, her delicious chocolates and friendly and alluring nature move the village, including the mayor and the priest, to her side.
It was a charming story with a profound message. The story might as well have been about present-day Pakistan, with the difference that the young woman might not have had a happy ending.
While the movie credits scrolled up on the screen, the plane's PA system crackled with the announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll soon be landing at JFK. Please fasten your seatbelts …” What a relief! The 19-hour journey was finally over.
The journey that had started with a sense of foreboding passed rather pleasantly, thanks to the governor, the child, a mouse — and the pill.
Note: The essay was published in The News on July 1, 2016.
