My Gateway To Paradise

It was the 26th of February 2021. Appa had passed away three months ago –on 27th November 2020 and only now was I returning home. I was returning to a ‘Sri Lanka’, a ‘Batticaloa’, a ‘Home’ where Appa was no more. My motherland was fatherless to me.

After a long and expensive flight of ten and a half hours, taking off from Heathrow, London, the captain finally announced his landing preparations, confirming that we would soon reach Katunayake, Colombo. The time was just beyond Lankan noon.

The window blinds pulled down by the cabin crew last night, shortly after the dinner, had to be lifted now. Those blinds had remained an obstacle to my view from the window seat throughout this long flight. I did not dare to lift it open, flush the Middle-Eastern and South-Asian dry daylight into the cabin of masked passengers and disturb their peace-seeking slumber in the sky.

All of the passengers on board with me probably had personal and emotional reasons to fly during this pandemic. Most likely, all of them had their own urgent destinations to reach. A long flight of these many risky hours would have been their last resort to arrive home soon; to wave a life goodbye to someone whom they love so dearly, to take care of someone who was waiting for their compassion, to be at someone’s wedding, to cherish love with their spouse, to celebrate the happy arrival of a newborn baby or to mourn the sad demise of a loved one with their families. Moreover, some of them would have had the worst financial and mental situations, and reaching home on the next possible flight to their motherland was their only way of surviving this global crisis.

The much-cherished and longed-for ‘Ceylon Tea,’ poured from the finest teapots in style, was not served on this flight. The magical paradise words of “cup of tea, sir?” from the peacock-feathered sarees with coral red Sri Lankan smiles were absent. All the beauty and grandeur were marred by the Personal Protective Equipment. However, the meals served on time were promisingly Sri Lankan to the eyes and refreshingly homely to the tastebuds.

I looked through the window with a deep breath, and the dry clouds we were descending through kept in suspense the otherwise magnificent view of the now pandemic-stricken island. My heart began to become weak and sunken, realising that I see this sweet home of mine, up from the sky, in the absence of my father. My motherland was, indeed, fatherless to me.

With the gradual loss of altitude of the descending aircraft, my body and mind began to lose their confidence too. I may have to face the empty destinations of my home, which were always filled with the love and cheer my father brought into my life.

I leaned towards the window and observed the wide-open space between the land and the sky from my window seat. More than the ground, my heart’s yearning was towards the sky. I looked beyond what I could see in faith. My lips opened, and with tears in my eyes, I silently cried out those words I wanted to over the last few months of grief.

 I knew that my father’s presence is no more within this human space between the land and the sky. Appa’s body is buried in this ground, his soul will be rejoicing in heaven, and his spirit is with all those who cherish his life with thanksgiving and have lovingly imbibed his way of thinking. He is no more in this atmosphere of human life.

As the flight’s descent continued, my eyes noticed the lush green that slowly began to appear from the landing view, spread like a green carpet over the land’s brown soil. The empty sand beaches had no usual tourist festivities, and only the silent waves that reached the destined shores made a move. The welcome was unusually muted all the way from the Laccadive Sea’s blue waters to the Serendib land’s green vegetation, and the whole landscape was pregnant only with uncertainties, disrupted routines, emptiness and anxieties.

Suiting this landing scene’s unusual setting, there was a turn of events at the final approach. The aircraft’s fully deployed flaps suddenly retreated to a moderate position, and the almost relaxing jet engines prepared for the reverse thrust on touchdown began to roar extensively. I witnessed the aircraft taking off again. It was an aborted landing, and it took another squared ‘go around’ over the coastal sands for the pilots to align themselves with the runway for another landing approach.

As a regular visitor of video channels of plane spotters on the internet, my head, still in its aeronautical infancy, began to move like a pendulum, trying to guess what would have gone wrong. My spectrum of doubts went to extremes until the plane landed safely. My words of prayer were not clichés during this ‘go around’ but innocent calls of seeking divine help and refuge for a safe landing. Never have I ever had such a delayed welcome before.

 

Goodbyes That Last For A Lifetime…

          I was standing between the landscapes of green pastures and flowing streams of water, of ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual.’ There was a long and prolonging dwarfed wall, stretching left and right from this never-ending path where I stood. The brick wall stretched all the way to the east and west horizons. A half-opened iron-fenced gate decorated with creepers of floral fragrance was the only sign of entry for those destined to walk through it to the other side.

Arched above by blooming and overflowing red roses and jasmines, the blood and the spirit, the privilege of a last glimpse at life was given to those who care to turn behind and close this little gate after them. Whenever someone cares to do so, the metal gate’s slow movement makes an announcement with high-pitched mourning. It is the refusal of the gate’s rusted pivot hinges. These farewell sounds echo in both the landscapes, and the souls of eternity are awakened with the joy of a new arrival while the mortal beings of life struggle to wave goodbye. This mournful announcement of departure from human life to eternity ends with a bit of trebled clangour when the gate’s metal latch, dropped by the passing souls, settles into its counterpart, loosely locking the gate. 

If not for this gentle courtesy of closing a gate behind oneself after walking through, these beautiful souls would never turn back to see what they have left behind. Their way forward looks prettier and more peaceful, and the path that leads to the glorious destination is more welcoming and attractive than what they would have ever seen, heard and felt in this world.

Like a swan landing on the lake’s surface to glide sedately, the plane swiftly landed on the runway, on Sri Lankan ground. As it began taxiing to the allotted parking space, I began to witness what the pandemic had done to my country. I had never seen this aerospace hub to be so barren. Adding to the pensive mood that the view offered, there was an unknown and unidentified pain creeping into my chest about this my arrival. The pain began to slowly caress me.

I felt the aircraft’s movement finally stopping in that dry afternoon open space and heard the jet engines lose power after eleven hours. And then, slowly, the clicks of the unlocking seatbelts took over the cabin. People were in a hurry, even in that decompressed airport. Indeed, no relatives will be waiting to receive, no friends to greet, and not even the taxi drivers of hotels waiting for the names on their placards to be claimed at the International Arrivals.

I somewhat knew that we would have only the Immigration Officers who look over their specs’ frames to identify our faces, the Duty-Free’s ambushed sellers who surprise-attack with promotional offers, the porters who convince us that we are not-fit-enough to pull our own items of luggage, and then the Customs Officers who may be willing to conduct a luggage raid.

Just a few steps ahead, there would be an unconscious disappointment awaiting us all as we smile inside our face masks and exit through those swinging exit doors. We would not have smiling and familiar faces who would be thrilled by our arrival. Instead, there would be military officials to whom we will surrender, and they will receive us and ensure that we are not a threat to national health. They will announce our fate for the next fourteen days of compulsory quarantine.

But I sat frozen in my seat for a while, fearing my flow of emotions when I stepped foot on Sri Lankan ground. I took my own time to ease myself. I very well knew, this time, the entire process of arrival was going to be extraordinarily strange and saddening to me.

This was the same airport where, in its ‘Departures,’ I had hugged my father tight for the last time and waved goodbye to him in September 2019. I felt I couldn’t keep my last assurance to him as his only child. Before I left for my doctoral studies, I assured him that I would rush to be with him anytime he wanted me to. I told him, “it is only a matter of eleven hours of flying, Appa! I’ll be right near you when you need me.” But, sadly, I did not have the slightest idea on that day that the global scenario in the technologically much-awaited 2020 would make me wait for months to organise a trip back home and that London to Batticaloa would become a flight, a transit, a journey of sixteen days! Indeed, I did not know it was my last few moments with my beloved father. Some of the goodbyes, we never know, are the last ones.

Moreover, Appa was always there at the Arrivals to receive me in yesteryears; every time I would return home on vacation as an undergraduate and postgraduate from Bangalore for nearly five years. He would wait for me there with patience, staring at those swinging exit doors as passengers kept arriving, and finally, when I made it through the same doors, he would receive me with an abundance of smiles and with assuring fatherly love.

Sometime during the first week of December, almost a week after my father’s death, the ears of my heart kept a long wait to hear the sounds of that ‘half-opened iron-fenced gate. I wanted to listen to the clangouring of that metal latch settling into its counterpart. I would feel relieved that Appa has reached the other side, I thought. Something within me questioned the absent farewell that I could not bid.

 There was an emptiness within me, creating a vacant space of mystery, with the lack of the physical waving of that last goodbye I could not afford. I needed the assurance of meeting again, face to face in eternity, to be said in human words within our father-son relationship.  Even though the tight hug and Appa’s blessings at this airport were literally my physically-present farewell, my absence at his funeral, my inability to be there to see him leave our home for the last time, my lack of first-hand knowledge that his body lies in the grave, tormented me. It always troubled me. The vacancy of my personal witness of his physical departure made me run behind him.

           I was seated with emptiness and incredibly unbelievable senses while my family and friends in Batticaloa were returning to our home from the graveyard after carefully and dutifully burying my Appa’s body at the Alaiyadicholai cemetery. I had just watched the burial via the live video together with many other relatives and friends who couldn’t make it to the funeral. Their presence in the Zoom room with me made me feel better and consoled; I did not watch it alone. I remembered the entire way that Appa’s body had travelled for the last time that morning, all the way from my home in Kallady to Alayadicholai. I felt the sudden emptiness. My cousin Beulah and her husband Padman, with whom I stayed during these days, were there with me during the entire funeral service. Batticaloa’s late morning was London’s early hours, and all of my early morning memories of the funeral looked like a dream watched on screen.

I felt the sun rising in the east and knew that this day’s sun had witnessed what I couldn’t. This sun that was over Batticaloa hours before had seen the burial of my father that I couldn’t, and it conveyed to me the beginning of a new phase of my life, a life without my dearest father. The sunlight, on that sorrowful morning, was a messenger of comfort. Days will follow and continue to follow without Appa, I thought for a while. Tears continued to flow as I realised that my Appa’s body could not be seen hereafter. My baby niece Hannah was in my hands, smiling at me after hours of silence. I saw hope in her eyes. I saw innocent dependence on her face. I hugged her and cried. There was nothing else I could do while my family and friends returned home, sprinkling water thrice on themselves. My heart, soul and body were searching for answers. The question of “why?” kept pinching me hard and sometimes pierced me. Here was a ‘one-and-only-child’ in me who always wanted to be near his Father and Mother, now lying in desperation so far from home and trying to be somewhere around where his father breathed his last breath. Nothing could comfort me.

Not a week had finished after Appa’s demise, and while I was in deep slumber, I heard that gate’s “little treble clangour.” Appa, before setting forth in his journey to heaven, had turned dutifully to close that gate behind him, and the arch full of flowers above him would have reminded him of me. While he was about to close the gate, he would have seen me still searching for him. He came back to wave goodbye. Appa was there in my home in Kallady, and it felt like it was the day of his funeral. He called me “Thambi” and took me aside to his room. I followed him carefully. On entering the room, he turned to me. His eyes were blank and empty, and I could see only a dimmed light coming from them. His eyes looked like the silent sapphire stones in yellow. And he said, “Kunju (dear), this will be our last meeting.” My heart of dreams and slumber felt the pain. I hugged Appa tight and cried bitterly. I said, hugging him, “I will meet you face to face in eternity, Appa…” From that day on, my mind felt rested and comforted. Appa bid me a farewell, a farewell that I had never thought of.

 

Gateway to Paradise…

I received an email in the third week of February from the Sri Lankan High Commission in London, a long-awaited response to my registration for repatriation’ five months before, in September 2020, right at the beginning of the peak of this “Corona Pandemic.” It had conveyed to me the good news that the ‘COVID-19 Task Force in Sri Lanka’ had granted approval for me to travel back home.

It was also mentioned that the same approval had been conveyed to the airlines that operated three flights a week, leaving London Heathrow at 9:30 p.m. Each flight arriving in Sri Lanka was allowed to bring a maximum of 75 passengers during this pandemic. I was asked to carry a ‘Negative COVID-19 test result, where the test could either be a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Test within 96 hours before departure or a Rapid Antigen Test done within 48 hours before departing. It was reinstated that no passenger would be allowed to board the flight without a negative COVID-19 test result, and I was asked to carry the report throughout my journey. Even those with the COVID-19 vaccine needed to comply with this requirement.

All passengers, the email further stated, will be subject to a mandatory PCR test at the airport after arriving in Sri Lanka. Suppose the person is tested negative for COVID-19, then the passenger has to stay at a paid quarantine centre, recommended by the Sri Lanka Army during the quarantine period – 14 days from check-in at the hotel. The requirement to undertake paid quarantine was a condition of the approval of my travel to Sri Lanka, and quarantining at private residences of the passengers was not allowed. I understood that I may have to undergo the second PCR test between the 10th and 12th days of this quarantine. If I am tested positive for COVID-19 at this second test, I will be admitted to a government hospital in consultation with the regional epidemiologists. Moreover, before leaving the quarantine centre, the area Medical Officer of Health would recommend me for home quarantine for another 14 days.

I remember that I was almost hopeless that morning and had worried about how long this wait will go on. I was almost at breaking point, not knowing when the temporary suspension on arrivals from the United Kingdom would be lifted in Sri Lanka. This temporary suspension was due to the variants of the virus that have started surfacing in the UK. I couldn’t handle the disappointments, one after the other. But noticing how the variants changed the dynamics of English life, I had even feared whether I would ever get to return home. My heart even bothered to remind me of all the poems I had read of soldiers who return home on retirement after decades of serving in the army and finding no one but bushes and creepers alone all around the empty and vacant houses. The impact was such! I have had dreams of all bridges on my way home being broken. During this tormenting season, I had woken up a few times, fearing that I would never see my homeland again.

Until we are trapped in a situational cell, we never realise how much we long to be with those we love. We never begin to feel those iron bars blocking us. As long as we are assured of our presence for the ones we love when they need us, even the emptiest cages feel luxurious. But there are moments when we wake up, disturbed by dreams of isolated islands, and our hearts tremble at this. When we scream in our dreams, fearing we will never get to see our loved ones again, our emotional fists begin to smash the fear walls; our heads bang themselves unknowingly; we start with muted cries with wide stretched lips, and saliva overflows from the edges.

Finally, there was news that the suspension on arrivals from the UK was lifted immediately, and I received this email the next day. It took me only half an hour to complete the reservation process and confirm my travel date. Well, this was something that I urgently waited and earnestly prayed for during the last few months. As someone who had gone through the sour digestion of bad news over the entire year of 2020, I wondered whether this just-opened gate would close next week. The adrenaline flush my fingers felt while searching for the next flight to Sri Lanka made me realise the unseen part of my anxiety iceberg. It was not just a flight to Sri Lanka – it was my narrow gateway to paradise; the ladder to the Trojan horse; the little hole on the Berlin Wall; Andy’s small hammer in the Shawshank prison cell. I had to make use of it.

As I began guessing the number of wealthy Sri Lankans who lived in the UK, the limitation of 75 passengers per flight during this pandemic worked as a siren, a flashing red light in my mind. It was not merely a reservation for travelling; it was a commitment to survive. It was a conscious decision to risk my life after many months of waiting to get home. It was my only way to grieve the demise of my father with my Amma. The flight was the only path to take me home to do my best as my parents’ only child at this time of loss.

A flight on 26^th February 2021 with Sri Lankan Airlines, a fourteen-day quarantine at Hotel Topaz in Kandy, and a few hours' drive from Kandy to Batticaloa brought me to the doorstep where I saw my Amma waiting to end her long wait. Amma and I, we hugged each other tight and cried out our hearts.

***