I am writing this post at an interesting point of time in my life. After three missed opportunities in the past 16 years of my professional life, my fate allowed me to experience a world outside of my beloved motherland.
Until about the end of the first decade of my career, I had this regret of having not been able to travel to abroad for work. My financial prudence has not yet allowed me to spend on an expensive foreign trip for leisure. However, entering into the second decade, the regret is happily replaced by a better sense of appreciating, cherishing, and sustaining many other good things that life has offered to me thus far.
But like they say that change is the only constant, my phase of sustained sense of contentment and comfort seems to be up for a change. Maybe for the good, the way I am perceiving it right now while flying above the Mediterranean Sea and about to enter the European airspace. My parents’ close friend and astrologer Mishra Ji told very early in my life that I might never go abroad. He repeated this in 2016 when he was writing my son’s Kundali (birth chart) and when he was asked to review if my destiny had changed by a bit :).
In early 2016, I got an offer to join a company that told me that I'd need to travel to the US as soon as I joined them. They sponsored and got me my US business visa within a week of my joining. But the project dynamics changed the very next day of receiving the visa. Then in 2025, I had to travel to Poland for work. Just two days after I received my Schengen visa, India conducted Operation Sindoor over Pakistan and all Corporate travels in and out of India were cancelled. Travels were resumed over the next couple of months, but my limited visa expired. Business need was no longer pressing enough for the Company to spend on my visa again. Finally, now in 2026, the Company decided to put me on a travel to UK, to perform duties at my next work level and to give me a chance to build my case for a promotion. This time my unnatural aspiration convinced me to strive for the travel. It posed a risk to temporarily rock the balanced life that I am very habituated to now. But I thought that, maybe, if I got promoted, I will be able to sustain in the Company for the next 5 years and then could be in a comfortable financial position to not fear the risk of losing my job. My travel bookings were confirmed, I had completed my packing and my wife planned to manage logistics at home in my absence. A week before my planned travel, US and Israel attacked Iran and disturbed the global world order. My flight to London has its original air route over all the countries that are engaged in a fearsome war right now.
Alongside acceptance of my destiny of not having to travel abroad, my fear of traveling by air has also grown over a decade. Sudden and unfortunate news of air crashes have kept coming every few years. As soon as I've convinced myself to overcome the fear, fresh news of failed flights and fatal crashes have flown in. Very recently, there was a very unfortunate crash of Air India’s biggest plane in Ahmedabad, on its way to London :). Then the plane of Indian Chief of Armed Forces crashed near Ooty. Then there were news of a lot of airlines violating air safety norms and overworking their pilots. Around the world, there were news of inverted landings and planes being put down by unknown attacks near Russia-Ukraine war zones.
To be honest, before boarding this flight in which I am writing this post, I have bid a very anxious and scared goodbye to all my loved ones. I had multiple conversations with my wife on the importance of keeping practicality alive alongside battered emotions when we lose our loved ones. Photographs were taken and shared, and an unspoken fear felt by my parents and my wife. My fear of flying is now well known to my family and close friends. At times they cite spiritual sayings that suggest that we can die anywhere anytime, death is the only certain thing in life. And at other times, they cite statistics that prove that air travel is the safest mode of travel. My counters are understood but seldom accepted. But this time, my loved ones were also fearful, mainly coz of the ongoing war and the fact that even the modified route of my flight is very close to the war zone. Before my every air travel, I share with my trusted philosopher friend an updated excel that has operational instructions to help my wife manage all of my financial assets. This time I was very particular that my wife understood the details before I left home.
I've been in flight for 10 hours now. Frequent business flyers say Air India's old planes' business class is outdated. But for me, a first time business traveler, it’s Luxury redefined. The fear has subsided and I am looking forward to land in London in another couple of hours, alive :). I am hoping Mishra Ji will be proven wrong soon. I am lucky to have got the window seat. I've had some amazing visual experiences that have given a lot of fuel to my philosophical mind. Clear and stark boundaries between the land and the sea. Endless desert over Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, with visible bounded topographies of different types of deserts. Very small trading ports in the deserts, with lots of ships advancing towards them. Spotting of the ships in straits and the jets flying at lower altitudes. And finally noticing the changes in both geography as well as prosperity of the world while entering the European boundaries. These visual delights have made me forget the material delight and the manners of flying business class.
I hope this upcoming new piece of life fits well with the current jigsaw of my life. Nervousness that I had in the morning today is slowly being replaced by a happy acceptance. There is a hope of having more of good experiences and better understanding of life. This of course by the grace of God, Parents, Loved Ones and maybe some good Karma.
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