Flying over oceans has always been a
gut-churning experience to me. Well oceans or not, when we sit in a plane, we
basically hand over the reins of our lives to the pilot. Irrespective of one’s
race, colour, religion, social status, physical or mental state of mind,
everyone is equal in the eyes of the holy cockpit which is suddenly elevated to
a godly realm, till the flight completes its safe touchdown at journey’s end. A
philosophical take, experimented in a limerick form (poem with a rhyme sequence
of AABBA) which weds my worst trepidations to a dark undertow of the ephemera
of human life.
It is an eerie
traversal
There lies only
the way forward, no reversal
My disposition no
longer is steely
As my lines start
pouring out freely
Make no mistake,
it ain’t no rehearsal
The plane though
in steady motion
Is stirring up
the heart’s commotion
To be more candid
and specific
We are flying
above the mighty pacific
As I turn into an
embodiment of emotion
The sight from my
window seat
Fills me with
morosity replete
As I stare below
into the expanse of black
Titillating on
the verge of a mild panic attack
At an altitude of
Thirty Thousand Feet
What do I behold?
Why do I feel the
need to be told?
Looks as if the
symmetrical night sky from above
Transmogrified
and plunged into the vastness below
With every
passing instant, I let a new wave of frisson unfold
The metallic bird
soars across
Sandwiched
between the two skies, without a pause
A massive cloud
gets in the way, puffy and ashen
Unletting the
filter through of the stygian vision
For a second it
appeared we had breached aeropause
While the nocturnal
vistas continues to taunt
Even as upwards,
the firmament does flaunt
A trillion
coruscating stars
And the effulgent
moon – Czar amongst Czars
The stillness of
the darkness below aggravates the haunt
Face pallid
trembling in terror
I down the
shutter looking away to divert from the horror
Attempting to
focus on the In-flight entertainment screen
A fleeting mild
palliating change of scene
From thoughts of
the night sky’s reflection in the Thalassic mirror
The IFE doesn’t
help much
The images offering
plain facts as such
That we are
sundered bang in the middle
Of the mighty Pacific
puddle
I see no hope,
seemingly at straws I clutch
And then arrives
the inevitable gloom
Unwinding itself
in copious volume
I can’t help but
presage
A very idea that
will spark outrage
But I can’t but
help being the purveyor of doom
All it will take
is one mistake, one pratfall
One Cardinal blunder,
leading to another pitfall
If something as
slightly as imaginable could go astray
A distressing
prospect I will peddle, if I may
Literally and
metaphorically, that is our downfall
I try peeping at
the holy altars and the pulpit
Where the pilots must
be working away at the cockpit
To transport us
across the seas
Safely, and to
put us at ease
One could only
hope they are doing a good job at it
All of a sudden
we arrive at the foot of nature’s plunder
A dazzling bolt
of lightning strikes, follows the thunder
Buffeted by a
series of jolts, the plane sharply angles to the left
Of any remaining
tinges of optimism, I am left bereft
My gut instinct
never sounded more profounder
As the sleeping
inmates are aroused
Rattled hysterical
squeals are quickly doused
By the reassurance
of the captain’s
Mellifluous words
that this was a momentary turbulence
I try to stem,
but fail, the ominous foreboding I had already espoused
After five
dreadful minutes, we are back to business as usual
Embarassed squealers
at center of the hullabaloo, try remaining casual
I uneasily roll
up the window shades
The magnetic
vision below once again persuades
Me to train my
eyes on the boundless visual
The Pacific now seems
even more scarier
As if browbeating
the avian carrier
With its snarling
gaping jaws
Summoning it to
jump into its deadly maws
To me, why does
it does appear?
That the aviator might
accede to it’s request
And coax the
passengers to comply at their behest
Advertising it as
the ultimate chance to end all suffering
Without needing
to live through the deferring
And once and for
all put matters to rest
I wish I could
talk in telepathy
To the pilots –
“We beseech thee
O lord, our lives
are with you in the cockpit
Hoping you will
honour the refundable deposit
But if you don’t,
can we do anything really?
Why do I think
you may actually laugh it off?
And that you
think that we are better off
Floating as
mangled corpses on the ocean floor
Whatever it is it’s
not in our control anymore
Melancholia is
solely mine, but my prayers on everyone’s behalf”
Into the skies,
everyday a million planes break free
Bouncing from city
to city, country to country
It’s remarkable
that I feel an emotion so raw
That it would be
us who would draw the short straw
Of what use is
being a proletariat, or what use is being gentry?
On this note, I observe
my co-passengers
Who though wholly
aware of the lurking dangers
Their exteriors try
to wax the sturdiness of an oak
Deep beneath I
know it’s a desperate attempt to cloak
Surging inner
foretokening of cataclysmic harbingers
I begin
scrutinizing the specimens
Donning a more
punctilious lens
One by one, I
hope to unravel
Over the course
of this travel
What each one
entails, with my acute sixth sense
Starting with the
‘consultant-looking-chap’ immediately to my right, Mister
‘Jack’ shall we
say, to give it a name, he seems one hell of a blister
He has been
ramming away at his laptop
Since the flight
took off, four hours non-stop
Sending missives
to his subordinates, probably with intentions sinister
“Mr. Jack, of
what use would be your Armani Tuxedo so slick
Or your
sycophantic claque, who bootlick
You, so you can
bask under the veil of self-aggrandizement
If I told you our
plummet down is imminent
Would you still
be so full of yourself, and your shtick?”
On to his right I
see ‘Jane’ an older lady
In her face I
discern a forlorn look of sadness, she seems unsteady
Perhaps a pain
too much to be able to cope
With? One that
has sapped away the last traces of hope?
She seems
stricken with an incurable malady
“Listen Ms. Jane,
please do not grieve
It may seem
though, as diabolical a plot as I could weave
But if this imperiled
plane now veers out of control
Over the
ephemeral pain, our destiny would steamroll
And in couple of
minutes, we shall be handed the ultimate reprieve”
Looking in front
on my right to the aisle
I see two kids busying
themselves in something puerile
Looks like some
video game. Perhaps PUBG? Whatever it may be
Boys have you no
clue of the decree laid out by the powers that be?
How blessed you
are to be blissfully juvenile and not febrile!
To my front, I
see a mother and her baby
The baby needless
to say, looks hardly troubled, the mother maybe
Is brooking pangs
of fears and nasty premonitions
Just like I am,
she too perhaps is at the receiving end of admonitions
And just like me
wishes to be caressed into sleep by a lullaby
The weather
outside seems to have improved, it brings
Back the sound of
the rudder’s salubrious whirrings
And the soughing
melody of the plane’s motions
Coaxing me to
alter preset notions
That flight
journeys are laden with red herrings
I still won’t
declare a clean bill of health
Imbued pessimism
won’t change either naturally or by stealth
My apprehension,
certainly won’t cease
Well, atleast
till we cross over the seas
And make the safe
landing on the morning of the twelfth
So with what
could have been a more modest critique
I finally am at
the end of my distended lyric
Needlessly
embellished verses sometimes does the trick
With one final
bow to the monumental pacific
I conclude my
somber limerick.