… in my old travel pouch. Boarding card stubs from my flight when I left India to study in Germany – flight from Bombay to Stuttgart via Frankfurt on 26th August 2002. It will be 12 years soon.

Boarding card stubs (BOM > FRA > STR) – 26th August 2002 is when I first arrived in Germany.

I remember everyone asking me to stay till my birthday and then leave… The classes were to begin on 2nd Sep. I think it was only Dad accompanying me to Bombay to drop me off …. just the first of many more times to come. At Bombay airport, as the security policy dictated, Dad would drop me by the entrance, stand there waving goodbye through the crowds till I was lost to his eyes among the other passengers. I always felt like I was abandoning him…that feeling remains with me till date whenever I have someone accompany me to the airport. So, these days I prefer to be on my own when I leave for the airport.

As my thoughts turn towards my Dad, I am just smiling up at the clouds floating lazily through the blue summer sky.