Traveling Light

by Athul DeMarco

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It was the summer of 1978. The movers and shakers of the world were flying to exotic locales like Disney land and Timbuktu to meet Mickey Mouse and the many starving princes. But Mr. and Mrs. Azad were off to get their 5 year old son acquainted with their respective in-laws. Traveling in the late 70's by the Indian railways was the basis with which futuristic theorists envisioned humans prepare themselves for the inevitable apocalypse. Mrs. Azad had packed little Tarun's milk bottle, enabling his fixation and obsession with his mother's breasts, food and snacks neatly packed in steel vessels, tea and milk to last for the whole 72 hour journey, along with mattresses, bed sheets, pillows, pillow covers and toilet supplies to last them for an indefinite period of time, just in case the broke down and the last man and woman alive had trouble fornicating in a valiant effort to save human race.

The concept of traveling light was yet to be discovered.

After boarding the delayed train, and making the customary baggage count, Mrs. Azad found to her utter disappointment that she had indeed forgotten few essential items to pack like fresh vegetables, fruits and hangars to hang their dirty laundry. The train had started to move and gather momentum in congruence to the then known laws of physics. As Mrs. Azad turned around to convey the news of her incompetence in the department of packing and household management to Mr. Azad, she found him on the platform waving them goodbye, with a wry smile on his face.

Mr. Azad was a man from the future. And he had done what any man from his time would have done, find a way to shed the excess weight and refrain from paying the excess baggage fee and accompanying tax at the check-in counter of life. He was truly a man of the future. He believed in traveling light.

It was the winter of 2010. Mrs. Azad on her flight to Machu Picchu received a text on her smart phone from Tarun. Her husband had finally been found. The message read, "Dead. No Balls, as instructed. Have a safe flight". Mrs. Azad boarded her flight with her Louis Vuitton bag in hand and wry smile on her face.

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Somebody once said, I am not sure if it was me, but anyway, "If you like traveling, meeting people, always trying to figure out what people are thinking, you can either become a researcher or you can create them...". So now I create them when I am not meeting them. 

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