The place was Leng Pui airport, far out in the North East. The time was the morning of December 31, 2006, and all of us family (which included father & mother, sis & brother in law, and yours truly) had been vacationing in the North-East and were waiting at the airport to catch our respective connecting flights back to our lives in various parts of the country.

The hitch? Flights were being rescheduled due to poor visibility caused by fog, and the Indian Airlines flight that we were waiting for was getting delayed and delayed, and we were getting increasingly restless about making it to Calcutta at all to catch our connecting flights on time.

When things go wrong at public places like airports, I guess something like a herd mentality comes into being and one tends to bond with others stuck in the same plight - names and backgrounds are exchanged, particulars about family are given, jokes are cracked about the system, and things like that. And in this beautiful country full of people from diverse backgrounds, it is a greater pleasure to meet someone else from the same state of domicile, equally stranded in a land far away from home.

That was where we met a mallu Soldier man and his Arunachali wife, and their little daughter Deepa. The Soldier worked for the Signalling department of the Assam Rifles (I somehow like these names), he was being transferred to field duty at Manipur and wanted to leave his wife and child safely back home in Kerala before taking up the new posting. He started his career in the Army about thirteen years ago, was posted for a long while in Arunachal Pradesh, met his would-be wife there, fell in love, got married, had a little girl, came back to the Assam Rifles, got promoted, and now was getting a transfer to field operations.

He had to reach Calcutta later that night to catch a train to Kerala, for a trip that he had been looking forward months in advance. This was the holiday season, and confirmed train reservations did not materialise out of thin air, even if they were made through the army quota. He had been coming to the airport for the past two days with his family, but the flights kept getting cancelled because of poor visibility. December 31st hopefully was his last day at the airport, and as the train reservation was for later that night, he had to get to Calcutta somehow, come hell or high water. And there were rumours abound that the Indian Airlines flight was about to be called off.

Hasty phone calls were made - to our travel desk in Mumbai, my friends in Calcutta, for flight information on every single airline that touched Leng Pui. News was grim - there was only one Air Deccan flight apart from Indian Airlines that touched this airport, and if visibility was bad, even that flight may be cancelled. But look at the brighter side of things, airport officials said - Deccan flew a smaller aircraft here, visibility should not be a problem with them. There was already a long queue at the Deccan counter, bookings were being hastily made. No special fares available at the last moment, and ticket prices were soaring.

Deepa and I played our little game of counting the number of fans and tubelights at the airport, when that was done we counted the number of suitcases on the conveyor belt, then we counted the number of policemen patrolling the airport, then the number of moustached policemen walking about. Then it was time for me to chase a few airline staff for news updates so I left her with her mother and moved on.

And then the news came out – visibility was dangerously low, and the Indian Airlines flight was being redirected - it would fly directly from Imphal to Calcutta giving Leng Pui a complete miss.

There was total fracas at the airport. People chasing queues, people chasing airline staff, people chasing errant members of their family. Emotions ran strong, cellular networks ran weak, tempers were hot enough to melt the morning frost from the airport windows. The Air Deccan counter fielded more people that day than they probably ever saw during the whole year.

Perhaps there is indeed something called the dignity of a soldier. Something in the way they spoke – with an air of practiced discipline, an air of I've-seen-the-real-ugly-and-this-doesn't-really-compare attitude, an air that conveyed many suppressed dreams and sacrificed promises and a calm acceptance of things whichever way they came. Whatever it was, brother in law and I conferred among ourselves and decided to get him and his family with us on the Deccan flight, and we'd split  the cost between the two of us, how much ever it came to.

And we too were at the Deccan counter amidst all the other people, hoping for confirmed seats.

Hours ticked by and the queue inched forward lazily. And then came disappointing news - the Deccan flight was also being cancelled because of low visibility, all passengers who had confirmed tickets may please approach the counter to initiate the refund process. Collective groans and moans, curses and this-is-the-problem-with-this-place mutterings. And in the scramble that followed, we lost sight of the soldier man and his family.

All of us family gathered together to discuss strategy. The best way out seemed to cancel our evening flights and head to Guwahati (over 600 kms away) where visibility was not much of a problem and book anew for the next day. That decided, Pops made the necessary calls to his friends at Guwahati about the new bookings to be done. Our native driver Boro majestically rose to the occasion by driving all night through ULFA infested jungles and landing us safely at our lodgings at 4:00 am.

Things went smoothly then on. We made our alternate bookings, reached the Guwahati airport later that afternoon, said our goodbyes, and returned to our diverse lives in various parts of the country. I even met someone who had a startling resemblance to a college crush of mine aboard the flight : )

Days have passed since we came back from that vacation, and many more significant things have happened since then to make this trip another leaf in a long list of memories of vacations spent with family.

But often my mind wanders back to that Soldier man in that distant land with his Arunachali wife and his chirpy daughter Deepa, optimistically waiting at the airport for their flight to be called so that they could reach Calcutta in time to catch their train.

Wherever you are Soldier man, I sure hope you found your way home.

"I hear her voice, in the morning hours she calls me,

Radio reminds me of my home far away,

Driving down the road I get the feeling

I should’ve been home yesterday (yesterday)

Country roads, take me home

To the place, I belong...

 - John Denver

"Country Roads"