Excerpt from the chapter Lay Down Life in Lusail
Thomas didn’t respond but ordered a Jack and Coke nevertheless. When the flight attendant reached the young man, he ordered another one for himself. Thomas placed his drink on the young man’s tray without saying anything. He smiled gratefully and gulped down both drinks in quick succession, wiped his lips, and immediately asked, “Where are you from in Kerala?”
“I’m from Aluva, specifically from Chowara, the Chowara on the other side of the river from the airport.” It was hard to pinpoint a place when both sides of the river had the same name.
“I’m from Kodungallur, but I know about Chowara. My colleague Abbas always talked about his native place, Chowara, which is situated nicely on the riverbank. I have never been there, but it must be a beautiful and serene place. A place from which a serene man like him, who never turns angry, comes must be serene too.”
He continued talking with no interruption and with no lack of elegant Malayalam vocabulary to express himself, words used in songs and poems that Thomas hadn’t heard in a while, and listening to them plunged him into an instant bout of nostalgia. From the young man’s poetic description of Abbas, Thomas was certain that it was his friend the fellow passenger was talking about, and so he didn’t even care to confirm it by asking any additional questions, though he was a little concerned that the young man’s voice grew sadder as he spoke, as if he were preparing to deliver some terrible news at the end of his long, flowery narration.
Then what Thomas had been dreading finally came from the young man’s mouth: “We were planning to go home on vacation on this flight together. He was expecting to meet an old friend from America at the airport as well. But God didn’t give that poor man one more chance to see his family and his old friend.”
The young man was weeping uncontrollably by then, and it was clear that he was drunk too from the two Jack and Cokes he had gulped down in quick succession. Thomas wanted to console him by hugging him and crying with him, to let out the big lump that had formed in his chest. But he resisted the urge as other passengers started noticing the young man, who looked drunk and desolate and was crying loudly. No one sitting around him knew why he was crying or how to pacify him, though everyone seemed to want to help and looked at him with empathy.
They did not talk for a long time, but the young man continued crying, which slowly subsided, while Thomas was lost in his own thoughts. The flight attendants came first with a snack and then with a light meal. Thomas and the young man did not care to take any of it. When Thomas was in a state to speak normally, he told the young man that he was the one traveling from America and that he had waited in vain at Hamad International Airport in Doha to meet Abbas.