The Real Wingmen

I was on the coach from Abu Dhabi airport terminal to board my flight heading to Bangalore. I was standing leaning onto the side frame of the coach, earphones in, vibing to Sublahshini's latest (Pugaipadam – Mismatched) and my mind was drifting somewhere far away. A couple of elderly women got on the coach and I looked across. One of them was quite small, and timid. Her eyes wandered around the pretty crowded coach as they shuffle into it looking for a comfortable spot. My gaze followed hers and I understood it was pretty packed. As I looked back at her, our eyes met and I left my spot and moved towards the middle and let them move into mine. It brought a bright smile on her face which made me smile as well. She mouthed a thank you and I nodded in acknowledgement. I felt warm inside. The melody really tugged at my heart after that.

Then, I went on to board the flight and settled in my seat. There was another pleasant elderly woman already seated on the aisle side, engrossed in her book. I settled down in my middle seat and opened up my own book. I noticed a dried flower in my book and I couldn't hold myself from smiling. The lovely lady next to me was checking the cover of my book and noticed me in glee. I showed the flower to her, and said it made my day. She smiled and said, I once got a book with plenty of lovely messages. We were just starting to have a conversation when the air hostess came by with a request for one of us to move places for a lady with her baby. So, I moved and guess what I was moved to the seat alongside the woman I met on the coach and her husband. They were actually this really cute elderly couple from Azerbaijan. He was this warm big man with wide shoulders and quite a firm handshake. She was a bit timid, but with such warm words. We chatted for a while as we had dinner. There is this warm, fuzzy feeling along with the bit of awkwardness that I feel whenever I get into a proper conversation with strangers. I feel acknowledged and accepted and for those few minutes or hours, I feel like I am a part of their life taking up a bit of their memory which they might carry to their grave and I hope I present the best of me to them. I love international flights for that reason. It’s a rarity in our domestic flights. Quoting Kanan Gill here, “India is the only place where you can look people in the eyes and just walk past them like they do not deserve interaction.”

I and my friend had quite a few warm conversations with fellow football fans while at the Fifa World Cup 2022 in Qatar. I think, people are innately quite warm. I think, we genuinely possess this ability to understand that might have different perspectives than us and that it is ok. I guess, the extent of it differs with our culture and upbringing. And I think as a society, as much as we encourage being cautious about so many things, we should also encourage understanding the good signs in people and building trust between ourselves. I feel like we are quite staggered as it is and the lack of need for interaction with others being gradually on the decline is slowly bringing down the social skills of people. I strongly believe that as humans, the little things and the little moments that really matter to us can only be gifted to us only by other humans. We could always keep in our lane and keep running, but having lovely company alongside is like having the wings to fly and I do believe that we can achieve quite a bit more while having fun along the way when we have good people alongside. I hope we can open up our hearts a bit more and hold people whenever they are in need for it because real wingmen help you land!

I feel the happiest when I can do any little thing that makes someone else’s life better. I believe the world would be a supremely better place if we can do a few little things for each other. Be kind, smile bright, spread love!