Airport
“I’m sorry we cannot tell you how long you will be here, but I can promise that as long as no one tries any heroics, you are all safe. You will have to be patient. It may take a few hours. Maybe even the whole day. We’re doing everything we can.” There was silence for a few moments as the man in the uniform stopped speaking, and then it seemed like a thousand voices started to speak at once. The noise was deafening. Angry, disbelieving, frightened voices all around the terminal. A few people sobbed out loud. I heard a little voice — “What did he say mummy? Why are you crying?” The army officer did not seem to find this disturbing or unexpected. He nodded to his colleagues, turned around, and started to walk away.
A calm voice rose above the chaos. It was the well-dressed man sitting next to me. I had noticed him earlier, wondering at his dark, clearly expensive suit, so incongruous among the colorful tourists. It looked like wall street had come to Udaipur. He’s probably here for some hotel deal, I had thought. The type who travels with a bag just large enough to carry one change of clothes. He would not waste time seeing the city and would leave as soon as his meetings were done. “Excuse me, officer.” At his polite but authoritative tone, the armyman, who had introduced himself as Colonel Patnaik, stopped walking and turned in our direction.
“My name is Vikas Sharma. I’m the president of Goethe Bank.” I was pleased to have guessed his profession. A look of respect seemed to come into the officer’s face at the name of the world’s largest investment bank. He blinked at the banker’s next words — “You were careful to not use the word, but may I ask — are we in a hostage situation here?”
The officer was guarded and polite. “Well sir, that would be a dramatic way of putting it. But we’re in the process of negotiating with an armed outfit which has parts of the airport under their control. I’m not at liberty to tell you what their demands are, or who they are. I’m sure you understand. Please know that protecting the safety of all the civilians at the airport is our number one priority. I will not be able to answer any more of your questions, I’m sorry”
“That’s fine. I understand, officer. I just have one more question. I see that I’m not able to access any internet. I would like to be able to communicate with my office to let them know I’m running late.” I suddenly wished Meena was with me, she would find this man very entertaining. I imagined the email he wanted to send — “Due to an unexpected terrorist attack at the airport, I will not be able to join the meeting. Please send me notes from the discussion asap.”
Col. Patnaik seemed amused too. “I’m afraid we cannot give you access to internet. I’m sure your colleagues already know of your situation. We issued a press statement about 30 minutes ago. Now I really must leave. Once again, please know that you’re all safe. And reasonably comfortable. You will have uninterrupted electricity and water. We will be serving meals every few hours. I’m hoping you will all cooperate with my team and let us do our job”. A thousand eyes seemed to follow him in silence as he walked out of the terminal.
The racket broke out again. I heard someone say — “But this is Udaipur, not Kashmir. How can terrorists come to Udaipur?!” I remembered the new noise-cancelling headphones that my grandson had sent for my birthday last week. Now would be a good time to use them. “These are the best bluetooth headset in the world right now, they’ll pair with anything. I have the same and I love them. You’ll enjoy listening to music with this, dadu. Tell me how you liked them”, his email had said. I opened the box, resolving to make sense of the instruction manual.
I gave up twenty minutes later. The headphones did not have even one button that matched with the pictures in the manual. Mercifully, the noise was starting to die down, or I was starting to get used to it. I got back to watching people. Other than me, the only person who seemed calm was the banker Vikas Sharma. He was reading some closely typed documents on his tablet, and making notes on it with an electronic pen. He also had a very sleek pair of earphones on. I considered asking him to help me with my headphones but he seemed a bit formidable. I’ll ask him if we’re still here in four hours, I decided.
And then I saw her. Here was another person who did not seem to mind being trapped at the airport for an undefined time period. In fact, she looked like she was trying hard to not seem pleased. What a strange girl, I thought. She looked regular enough, good looking in a girl-next-door kind of way. I guessed her age to be early 20s. She was dressed conservatively in a blue kurta and white pants. She looked up from her laptop and met my glance. She wasn’t ordinary looking at all, not with those large kohl rimmed eyes, which seemed to hold equal parts strength and vulnerability. It is possible I’m attributing those qualities to her in hindsight, knowing her as I do now, but even in that moment I remember thinking, this woman belongs in a middle eastern story of palaces and intrigues. She would be an unconventional heroine in the story though, playing more of rescuing role than being rescued.
I shook myself out of my daydreaming and looked away, hoping I hadn’t made her uncomfortable. From the corner of my eye, I saw her close her laptop, pack her bag and walking in my direction. A few seconds later she was standing next to me. I looked up. “I’m so sorry, I know I was staring. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that I was very surprised to see you so unruffled in all this.”
To my intense relief, she smiled. “I’m not offended, uncle. I came here because you’re sitting next to the charging point. My battery is low and I need to do some work. Can I put your bag on the floor and sit here? Thank you so much. You also don’t seem very bothered, by the way.”
This is the small city stuff I miss all the time. This would never happen in Bombay — unrelated young people calling you uncle. I smiled back at her. “At my age, you don’t feel all that afraid of death. It’s just another adventure. That’s a very underestimated advantage of growing old, you become brave.”
“Really? That’s so interesting. I know some old people, I’m sure who are older than you, who don’t seem to be very brave. Oh good, this charging point works, what a relief!”
“Before you start working, can I ask you for a favour? Do you know how to pair headphones to my bluetooth?”
She took the headphones and phone from my hand. “Of course! No problem at all.” It took her ten seconds to make the thing work. Maybe less than ten seconds. “There you go! Enjoy your music. These are really good headphones by the way. I’ve had my eye on them for a long time. I’m waiting for the next sale season to buy them. I’m going to work now, but don’t feel bad about interrupting me if you need anything. And I’ll watch your stuff if you need to walk around or something.”
“Thank you so much! This is why I never agree with my friends when they say young people are unkind. How did you do it so quickly? You didn’t even need to look at the manual! I’m very grateful, beta. If you won’t think I’m nosy, can I ask you a question? Oh, by the way, my name is Usman Sajid, and you can call me Usman or Usman uncle.”
She smiled and shook my hand. “Very happy to meet you, Usman uncle. My name is Anamika Tomar. What was your question?”
“I was wondering why you look so happy. Not that I’m complaining. It’s a very pleasant contrast to the general misery and mayhem around us. But it’s one thing to take this blockade in a calm and resigned way like Mr Vikas Sharma our banker friend over there. And quite another thing to be positively cheerful, the way you are. As though this is exactly what you want to do with your time on a Sunday afternoon. I’m just so curious. And that also comes with old age, we start to find it very hard to hold our curiosity back.”
She laughed at that. “I need to work on my poker face. My husband says you can see all my feelings on my face. But not my deepest feelings, I like to hope. But you’re right, this airport situation does seem like a blessing especially for me. The thing is, I’m a nurse at a very busy hospital in Delhi and I work 6 days a week. It’s supposed to be an 8-hour work day, but it ends up being 10 hours most days. When I come back home, my time belongs to my husband. On Sundays we catch up with friends and family. So there’s no time for anything else.”
My heart went out to this child. Her voice had lost the laughter from before, and she sounded tired. “I’ve been dreaming of doing a masters for years. There’s one particular course at Pennsylvania university which is perfect for me. My husband thinks I’m overreaching myself, but I think I have a very good chance. I somehow managed to study during hospital night duties and got a shockingly high GMAT score. I have a very good academic and professional record. All I need now is what they call a “compelling” application. I need to write two short essays. But I haven’t found the time. Every year I dream of doing this, and every year I miss the deadline because I keep procrastinating on the essays. After this year my GMAT score will no longer be valid, and I know I won’t have the energy to take that exam again. This is my last chance.”
She seemed to be fighting tears as she finished talking. She looked away from me, at the large windows of the terminal. It had started to rain. You interfering busybody, I kicked myself. Reminding her of things she did not need to remember. Why couldn’t you leave her alone.
Then, she seemed to reach within herself and tap into some inner strength. She breathed deeply, turned to me and smiled again. “Don’t look so sad, uncle! It’s true this is my last chance, but I will make it work! Don’t tell anyone, I’m secretly rooting for these terrorists who’re holding us hostage. No hospital, no husband, no communication with the outside world, no need to apologise to anyone. I can write my essays in peace! By god, I’m going to write such powerful essays the university will come begging to take me in! No one will use this master’s degree as well as I can. I need this.”
As if on cue, the airport seemed to fall silent. It was probably just that people had, by degrees, come to accept that we were here for the long haul and started to calm down. But to me it seemed like there was sudden silence. As if in respect towards this girl’s hopes for her future. And in acknowledgment of how utterly random the universe is, how life-changing encounters can happen when you least expect them.
“Okay then. Stop talking and start writing,” I said.
Essay #1: Tell us something about you. What life experiences and lessons make you a good fit for the masters in healthcare administration program? (1000 words)
I was born 25 years ago in Udaipur, a popular tourist town in the north-west of India. My family belongs to the “Tomar” caste, which may seem like an unnecessary data point but is actually quite significant because it has determined my entire life path so far. Tomars are an upper caste warrior community and are known for being a proud race. The pride mainly seems to come from how unchanged the traditions are and how unrelentingly the march of “modernity” has been resisted. As might be expected, traditions around women’s role and place in society are the most entrenched. Tomar women bring honor to their families by rejecting education and through blind obedience to fathers and husbands. My father is a bit of a maverick in the community. Not only did he let me finish high school without once bringing up the subject of marriage, but he also insisted that he would let me voice an opinion when my marriage was being arranged. People shook their heads at my father’s modern ideas but he was proud to be known as a defender of women’s rights. But only as long as the rights were of his choosing. He eventually came to regret his advice that I prioritize education over feminine skills, because I showed a marked tendency to misuse the freedom being gifted to me. He said he wanted his daughter to be an independent thinker but he hated it when I argued with him instead of being grateful and obedient. He once found me reading Sartre hidden inside my schoolbook covers. He was so upset he shredded the book and threw it in the garbage bin. But the words I had been reading that afternoon had already burned themselves in my memory: “The individual’s duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person.” This became my secret mantra — to be accountable to myself, always.
Our first major argument was when, at 16, I took the first rank in the state board examinations, and the school wanted to print my picture in the newspaper. He was starting a new business and he wanted to fit in, he said. People anyway judged him for how much I studied, he did not want to brag about it. His days of being a social justice warrior were over. My mother supported him for reasons of her own — she did not want the world to see how dark-skinned I was before she had had a chance to start marriage conversations. I won that battle through negotiation. I promised my parents the picture would be printed with my middle name — it would be Anamika Singh, not Tomar. They were able to protect their name, and I was able to experience the pride I needed to feel. I lost all the truly important battles though. A few months later, when it was time to choose colleges, I did not get a seat at any of Udaipur’s medical colleges, but I got one in Jodhpur, which was five hours away by road, but could have been another country as far as we were concerned. My father wouldn’t hear of me taking that seat. Single women who lived in hostels were not respectable. I thought of running away and paying my way through college, like Americans do. Or I could try a combination of charm and aggression would work to change his mind. It was a disaster. I remember every single detail of that memorable morning. The teakwood dining table. The bowl of fruits. The plate of dhokla in front of me. My mother’s tears and my father’s rage. His speech on my duties as a daughter. His list of the things they had sacrificed to give me a good life. I would leave my parents’ roof the day I got married or died, but not before. To this day, I cannot look at dhokla without getting nausea. It was the day I learned my life’s biggest lesson — there are some invisible prisons that become visible only when you try to escape from them. Every failed escape attempt adds to the chains.
I joined a nursing college which was a ten-minute car ride from our home so that family driver could drive me and back in between other errands. Six months in, I knew I had found my calling. I enjoyed every class, every hour in the hospital. Three years later I graduated at the top of my class. My parents were very proud on my graduation day but they were far prouder the next day, which was my wedding day. My mother had negotiated through eight proposals for me, and only one had said yes. This was the only family willing to consider a dark-skinned daughter-in-law.
My husband Arvind is from the same community as ours. He studied engineering in India, went to Stanford for his masters, and came back a venture capitalist. My parents think he is a god. He had spent five years in America and he still believed in arranged marriages. He wanted to marry within the Tomar community, but he did not want a traditional wife. He asked his parents to find him a different sort of a girl who could support his career. The day before our engagement, we met at a coffee shop. I knew my parents had paid two of my cousins to have a meal in the same coffee shop and to keep an eye on us, but it was still thrilling. It was the first date of my life. He had a checklist and it seemed like an interview, but I enjoyed myself. He asked me what books I read, what music I liked, about my favourite films. He shook his head in amusement at everything. I will have to teach you so much, he said. He also found it amusing that I did not know what venture capitalism was or why he did not work in engineering when that’s what he had studied. I am an engineer of money now, he said, and laughed. His father called mine an hour after I came back home — a very long hour it was — and said that their son had said yes. My father was in tears. “He is such a generous man. He said Anamika will never have to work for money — he makes more than you can spend — but he will let you work as long as you want to.”
No one asked me, of course. I would have said yes if they did. I saw my healthcare work as my true identity, so I was grateful to marry someone who supported my career. I was 19 so I forgive myself for not knowing I was exchanging prisons, not escaping. Gratitude does not make for a marriage of equals. A few months after we married and moved to New Delhi, I learned the second biggest lesson I needed to learn: abuse comes in many disguises. One of the disguises is contempt and disrespect dressed up as tradition. Arvind thinks of my work as a hobby — something to keep me occupied until we have children. So he is annoyed and confused if I miss social events for hospital duties. When he introduces me to friends and colleagues, he never forgets to tell them that yes I’m only a nurse, but I once had an offer to join med school but I turned it down. He rolls his eyes when I say nursing is more meaningful to me than a physician’s practice could ever be. If I tell anyone that I dream of doing a masters in mental health nursing, he never forgets to add that I’ve been trying to get into the program for five years and it’s my unique way of passing the time until the children come. Everyone, including I, laugh when he says that. Only I know that the children will never come. I will start my masters next year and I will never come back to this life. I’m old enough to make the right exchange this time. This time I will trade the prison for freedom.
Essay #2: Briefly describe your nursing career so far. Where do you see yourself professionally in ten years’ time? (200 words)
In my five years as a full-time nurse at Delhi’s largest public hospital, I have worked in orthopedics, pediatrics, gynecology and psychiatry. I’m the youngest nurse to get rank of senior staff nurse. I have won the nurse of the month award eighteen times, which is a record (the runner up is a senior staff nurse who has won it eleven times in her ten -year career). While every day has been fulfilling, I’m most valuable when I’m working in gynecology or psychiatry because these are the things I care about most deeply — women’s health and mental health. These also happen to be the least favorite departments of the other nurses, so my assignments in these departments are always the longest. I want to build deeper skills in these areas, and to use the skills to build power tools for women. Tools to help women recognize obvious and hidden abuse, and to escape from them. In ten years, I will be working in a position of power in a large healthcare organization, shaping events that make the world more equal for women. I will build an organization where women will learn to access the keys to unlock all the prisons holding them back — health, families, societies, fears, inner critics. In the process I will build my own life. It will be a life of freedom and power.
Your preferred email address for communication: mika@tomarmail.com
I was lost in music, each song reminding me of Meena. A deep sigh next to me brought me back to the present. Anamika had take her glasses off. She blinked for a couple of seconds, sighed again, and shut her laptop. I looked at the time. It had been three hours.
“Did you finish drafting at least one of the essays?” I asked.
She stood up and stretched. “I wrote two essays, uncle. They’re are not the essays I will send to Penn. They started as school essays but ended up being journal entries that my future self will enjoy reading. But they have put me in the right frame of mind. I’m feeling charged up. I’ll walk around a little and write two essays that will knock their socks off. Not only that, I will do them so quickly that I will meet the deadline for the first admissions cycle.
“When is the deadline?”
She laughed. “Tonight. So I’m hoping this hostage situation will go on a for a few more hours.”
