I went Flying one day!!

How many times have you flown in your life? When are the occasions when you fly? Is it only when you are in an aircraft that you fly? Or is it that only when you do not have ground under your feet you are flying?

To many people being in an aircraft means you are flying. But actually, in an aircraft you have something solid under your feet, a makeshift ground you can say. That gives us only a partial sensation of what flying actually is. When you are sitting in a flight you are gaining an experience. Flying actually is a sensation. The sensation when actually you find your feet floating in the air, with nothing to hold on to by your hands and you are driven completely by the winds and by gravity- that is flying!

I did have such a sensational experience once. I did fly once. Oh! It was indeed an once-in-a-lifetime experience. I was just gliding through the thin mountain air, feeling a lot closer to the sun, finding my mom and dad as very small figures on the ground. Every time the winds took a turn, I had jitters in my stomach. I had jitters and butterflies throughout those unforgettable 20 minutes of my life. I could see huge pine forests, a huge lake which seemed very deep, a big playground where kids were playing football and a small school nearby. All of these under my feet! All of these looked so small and tiny! Except the lake, of course! Half the time, I was trying to remember my swimming skills in case I somehow managed to fall into the dark cold waters of the mountain lake. Nah! I would probably get tangled in the ropes and die out of suffocation and cold before my hands and feet even recognize that its their time again to save my ass. Also, my imagination was going berserk thinking that if a random bird just flew through my chute making a tiny hole in it what would I do? I imagined this would be a good way to die. Just saw my parents, dying while I am flying, literally! Well I guess that’s the best way to go! I had been so close to the sun, seen such a beautiful view of the snow clad Himalayas spreading throughout the horizon with all the greens and beautiful streams. I could even see over the cliffs of a few junior mountains. It was a perfectly happy moment. And I had even fulfilled my quota of falling and tripping down the mountain before the actual take off. I was bruised and I was happily gliding or paragliding, you may say. I was ready to die!

Just then, the guide broke into my chain of thoughts and said, “Mam, you are one of the most courageous persons I have taken up for flying”. I was surprised at this revelation, so I asked, “Why so?” “If there would have been someone else, after the 2^nd fall and failure to take off, they would have quit. But you continued even after the 3^rd time you tripped over and down the slope. You took off and you screamed in delight and not in fear!” Well, I felt very proud and weird because I did trip over 3 times, out of which one time I took another 4 men along with me down the slope of a mountain. Yeah, not only me, the whole crew was bruised due to me. I was scared they would charge my dad extra for all their bruises!  And the delight was that I finally made it, and I did not fall or take others down with me! Well that’s me. Apparently not scared, but I do screw up a lot. That moment I realized the ground is not for me. Its either the air, or the water, because I don’t bump into things in either of these mediums. Somehow when I am on the ground, stuff keep coming my way and I keep bumping into them. I absolutely loved it in the air, occasionally touching a passing cloud! But unfortunately, I am a human and not a bird or fish that can live not on ground.  By the time I took in like galleons of fresh air in my lungs, I was nearing the ground. The winds may have heard my thoughts and got a kick of fun, because they were acting very strange per the guide. When I finally landed on the ground, well, it was not a smooth landing. But that is kind of normal for me. I mean, my parents would have been worried if I did not have a bumpy ouch landing flat on my bottom. 

So yes, that was my flying experience. But that’s not the only time I flew. We fly as many times as we get some of our wishes fulfilled, the most desired ones mostly. Flying is a feeling of being without any constrictions or boundary, soaring high above without any limit, when sky is your limit. You fly every time you hope for something really beautiful. You fly when you achieve your heart’s desire, no actually you take off when you just imagine that you can achieve it. Every time you are ecstatically happy without any other influence, you are flying. You fly in your dreams all the time!

That answers my first question. You have flown on many occasions, not when you board an airbus, but when you are happily on cloud nine, when you have hope! Those occasions are rare, agreed, but that’s what makes them so very special. The Wright brothers did not fly for the first time when they took off from the ground on their plane, but they took their first flight when they hoped and imagined that they could make man fly one day.

So keep hoping, keep wishing, keep flying high! The sky is literally your only limit. J J

Happy New Year!!