Kahiin duur jab din Dhal jaaye/ Somewhere far away when the day dulls

I am always up for some adventure.  The operative word is "some".  Even when my flight from Chennai to Frankfurt was diverted to Nurnberg after it had waited an hour in a holding pattern, for runway space, I wasn't nonplussed.  I would miss my connecting flight but a worse fate could have befallen me?   I was being willfully optimistic and a tad premature.  When we finally took off from Nurnberg I began to feel restless.  4 hours in an idling plane on a runway would do that.  We landed in Frankfurt at half past one, 5 hours late.  

My flight which should logically also have been delayed was nowhere in sight and for that matter out of the hundreds of flights shown to be departing over a 4 hour window there were none showing as Toronto bound.  That's when it dawned on my dull head that the situation was a lot graver than I had hoped.  This came as a crushing realization when I joined a mile long queue with other weary and irate travellers bound for a few hundred destinations.  The nightmare which began to unfold had no end in sight.  When panic sets in, the mind goes irrational.  I had an immediate vision of me trapped in this airport with no way out, reminiscent of a recent Hollywood movie based on said theme.  There were no less than ten thousand people ahead of me in the line that snaked through the terminal and the weather had to hold up for flights to make it out with all of us.  So, not so irrational!  Now the question was if I should stand in this endless queue or abandon it at the risk of having to rejoin it at a later time, causing further delay?  

My situation appeared hopeless and I had a temporary glimpse of a life trapped in despair!  In that  moment I remembered the desperately poor woman with a mentally ill daughter whom no institution would take, back in Chennai, and whom I had been unsuccessful in assisting. That thought and a few calming breaths later, my perspective changed.   I took in the experience as an adventure unfolding and was now excited to find out how it would end.  I abandoned the line.  It turned out to be a blessed decision because I found several people willing to help.  I ended up in a much shorter line meant for long haul passengers.   I was able to partake of refreshments that my  parched throat and  starving belly craved, from the islands of food and drink set up by the airline!  The wait was still long but i enjoyed it people-watching, writing and meditating.  I got rewarded with taxi vouchers to and from Lufthansa's Seeheim Conference Centre in a beautiful wooded park, where I had a nice room for the night, great dinner and a sumptuous breakfast which I shared with an Indian, with whom I also waxed prolific about the wonder and exasperation that is India today!  My taxi drivers both ways were Afghanis with a love of Indian music.  As we were racing down the autobahn in the cold, to catch my flight the next morning, the driver switched suddenly from a German news channel and the melodic voice of Mukesh filled the car and warmed my heart with this song..

Kahiin duur jab din Dhal jaaye
Somewhere far away when the day dulls

Saanj ki dulhan badan churaaye
The dusk sneaks up shyly like a bride

Mere khaayalon ke aangan mein
In the courtyard of my imagination 

Koi sapnon ke deep jalaaye
Someone lights up a lamp of my dreams ...

A perfect end to a perfect adventure.  It was a lesson in living with perspective!  

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PytEd_wXueU