Charu

"What do you mean the flight has not yet taken off?", Charu with a frown on her face asked. A slightly pudgy figure with hair neatly combed off her broad forehead, a mother of a cute little girl of two, Charu was already exasperated with her own decision to board a morning flight to Egypt. It was 6:30 am and the flight was scheduled to depart at 8:50 am. She had woken up at 4, got her things tidy, spent some time with her mom before she leaves for a long time to a far away country.

Charu was married to Avinash, a well to do manager in The Savoy. He has been in Sharm-al-Sheikh, a beach town tourist destination in Egypt for last one and a half years. Charu was flying down to be with her husband after a long vacation in India. Neeli, her darling daughter was travelling along her and her first trip to meet her dad was not even dampened by a sudden seasonal fever she was suffering from. 

“Are you going to Cairo?”, a question greeted Charu while she was patiently waiting for her check in. She turned back to see a smiling face with a genuinely quizzical look. The girl looked pretty in plain teal color kurta and her carelessly made bun had more than few escaped strands. She was on the heavier side but her eyes had innocence. She might be a young woman in her late twenties, guessed Charu. “Yes”, she replied softly and bent down to wipe her daughter’s nose. 

“The flight has not left Cairo yet.”, announced a middle aged man. The girl gave an exasperated look mixed with disbelief and shrugged her shoulders. Charu was bewildered too. The man announced that the flight is way too much delayed and all passengers have been asked to go back if they could and come back at after three and a half hours. The young woman shook her head and headed straight to the check in counter to inquire the flight status. A handsome and smiling gentleman was standing near the counter and his mannerism suggested that he was in charge. She approached him and asked about the delay. He looked at her and smiled. She couldn’t help but reciprocate though she hardly felt any reason to smile. He informed that due to technical fault, flight from Cairo had not yet taken off and will do so in another fifteen minutes. Hence, the delay caused. “Can we check in our baggage and go?”, she asked. The man in charge replied that she would have to stay back if luggage is checked in.  Though she marvelled at unexpected start to her journey, she was too sleepy to protest. She tuned back to leave but suddenly looked back the incharge with concern and asked, "I will be missing my connecting flight to Istanbul. What will happen to that?". "Oh, there is another flight in the evening for Istanbul. You will be accommodated in that.", the person replied. She shrugged her shoulders and asked to be assisted in walking out of the airport. Another aircraft assistant helped her out of the terminal.

Charu saw the girl leave. She waited for sometime before approaching the person-in-charge. She asked softly, " When will the flight leave?". The person looked at her and seeing her with a kid, replied in a genuine tone, "Madam, we do not yet but flight is about to leave Cairo. It will take five hours for it to reach and will take an hour to turn it around. So check in should not happen before 11:30 AM. You can safely come at 11:30 and take the boarding pass. Your daughter will also get to sleep some more.". Charu smiled and turned. She called her father-in-law and informed him that she was coming outside. 

Airport assistant helped her with the trolley while she held Neeli. She was relieved as well as tensed. Now she would miss her connecting flight to Sharm-al-Sheikh for sure.  Her all apprehension evaporated seeing her darling daughter run to her grandpa and hug him. She thought to herself, "Good, I got some time to sleep now.".

Charu's mother-in-law, a lady in her early sixties was waiting for her at home. She took charge of Neeli and asked Charu to rest a while.