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Musings of a weary traveller


 I peer bleary eyed through the window as the Jet swoops down on earth, majestically like a giant metal bird and lands on the tarmac with a muted screech of burning rubber and reverse thrust.

Walking through another magnificent edifice of glass and steel, more glass than steel to be precise, that passes of for airports these days, I look around me and wonder how much things have changed. Airports these days are gleaming structures with every facility you can dream of and some that you can’t. Most of the latest structures have taken hygiene to an all new level and are virtually sterile. While people travel together, they don’t even seem to realise that they are. Most of them are bawling into are being bawled at through the ultimate wonder of modern communication – the  mobile phone , depending on their position in the corporate pecking order. If not, they are busy catching up on their mail vide the magic of the black berry, Women are making a serious dent in the bank accounts by shopping like there is no tomorrow

Yet, as I unpack my lap top and other accessories in a valiant attempt to set up office temporarily in the coffee shop of the transit lounge overlooking the tarmac, I ponder over my thoughts and wonder have things really changed?  Having travelled far and wide in the past and having met people of all colours and races I have realised that despite  the various  hue of our skin or the slant of our eyes, White ,black or brown ,Occidental or Oriental, human beings are all very much the same, have been, and will be in the distant future. Our basic needs are very much the same, we are all chasing that distant dream – a wonderful job, a perfect spouse, wonderful children, a comfortable living ….. So on and so forth the list goes on and on ..

While the gadgets or contraptions that we crave for may be new the urge to possess is fundamentally very much the same. The instinct to protect our children, the fundamental desire to give them the best of everything has not changed since time immemorial. The Alpha Male syndrome still very much exists except that the unit of measure has changed. Forcing my mind back to that unfinished report which needs to be emailed urgently I break my thoughts and focus on that mail which should have gone long ago.

A couple of hours later, as I stretch out and glance down at my watch wishing it to move faster, I watch as another of those giant metal birds glides down smoothly and effortlessly. Weary passengers wait desperately to board their flights. Despite the best luxuries that you experience elsewhere nothing can be more comfortable than “home” A television screen continues to inform us of the horrifying miseries of a civil war in North East Africa, a daring Bank heist, the valiant efforts of Doctors braving the elements and saving lives elsewhere, the horrifying deeds of a dictatorial regime ------It seems to drive home a point.   Power, Greed, fear , hunger, sacrifice … emotions which have been around since the Stone Age, So much History has taught us, yet we refuse to change.

Hours later my flight lands in Chennai and as I open the door of my apartment , I hear my daughter scream in delight on seeing me and yell “Did you buy that chocolate for me ?” As I am stunned into silence, she sees the shocked look on my face and turns back in disgust muttering “Not again”

I realise then that while Everything apparently seems to have changed in reality Nothing has changed.

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