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Dedicated to my soul, that’s part Freudian and part unexplored…

Prologue:
Savitri kept looking at her only son. Teary-eyed and almost pale, she enquired out of the blue, “You are a leftist, aren’t you?”

She was attaching herself to the glass partition that separated the airport’s internal rooms from its primary exterior. She tried focusing in one direction and then moved her head randomly to others, covering a trajectory that seemed to bring out an undefined geometric figure. She resigned.

“I don’t see anything Ram”, she said, a wry smile ruling her face.
Ram was her younger brother who had a family of his own, but had decided to accompany Savitri en route to bidding adieu to her only son Siddharth. Siddharth had just got through his GRE and had helped himself to an admission in a reputed university along the west coast.

“Don’t lean on the glass, you. People are watching. Try peeping. Like in a peephole? Peep and squint a bit. Look straight from where you are looking and then turn your vision left”

“Oh ok”. Savitri did as instructed. She peeped, squinted and started turning her vision left. The passing trolleys often conflicted with her actions but she bid her time. Her eyes covered an array of entities from a demure couple to an old lady, a bulky Sardarji in a T-shirt embossed on which was the text in bold, “BOYZ WILL ALWAYS BE BOYZ”, a lanky middle-aged guy, a few unoccupied seats, before finally stopping at a youngster in his early 20’s, dressed in kurta and jeans.

“I see him now”, she cried out.

Ram felt a sense of relief come upon him. He just moved away and stretched a few jaded muscles of his. Savitri however continued peeping.
“Don’t you think that kurta looks a bit worn out, Ram?” she asked.

“Well you can’t argue with these people on their tastes in clothes or music, can you? I have stopped doing that with my kids”, Ram replied.

“Yeah, it’s definitely worn out”, Savitri came back not totally in sync with Ram’s theory.

Savitri Krishnan had been watching her son for most part of his life, but all those hours could not have been a good trade for these last few minutes of intense peeping. She kept looking at his face, smothered on which were huge flashes of circumspection. Siddharth was unsure, she knew. He would be fine in time, but unsure he was then. His idea of achievement had ballooned so much in time that he could hardly gauge whether he was up to it or not. He wasn’t the same ‘Siddhu’ who would let out an exult every morning on having gulped down his glass of chocolate milk. He had graduated from being that kid who could once start off his day in a joyous fashion just on the pretext of having tied his own shoelaces. His happiness, these days seemed to stem out of achieving something more substantial.
Or maybe, he just wasn’t that reactive. He had hardly squirmed upon learning that he had missed getting an admission into his preferred university by a whisker, the first time around. Savitri weighed that nonchalance of his against the time she and her husband, the late Mr. Krishnan had decided to reallocate Siddharth to his new bedroom. The time Siddharth had walked back into their bedroom in the middle of the night, half-asleep, only to exclaim,” Dad, what are you doing to Mom?”

Savitri smiled at herself, still peeping. She watched Siddharth’s bespectacled eyes sheepishly follow a young lady. The damsel though, did not reciprocate with the same kind of enthusiasm. He looked away, slightly humiliated but reseated himself yet again, his head down and murmuring something.

“Gosh, he still talks to himself”, Savitri gathered.
Siddharth was a random talker, liked conversing with himself, often talked in his sleep. Savitri had overheard him revising his lessons in his sleep. Differentiating the monocotyledons from the dicotyledons, the Indian sub-continent, Phrasal and Non-verbal verbs, trigonometry, the First world War, Electromagnetism, Gravitation, semiconductor electronics, digital signal processing, all in his sleep. The world to him seemed to exist only he was consciously a part of it.

Savitri watched him adjust his suitcase that was wedged in between his legs. She watched his pen fall off his pocket and roll away. She watched him not making any effort to get it back. She was transported back to the time when Siddharth would, as a toddler often push a plastic ball beneath the cot and instead of going to get it, call it from outside.
“Laziness… he so hasn’t given up in time”, Savitri theorized.

Her pupils dilated. She cleared the misty covering off the glass with her sari and continued looking. She watched Siddharth get up and walk over to a newspaper stall, taking out two pens from his bag. He couldn’t pick one from the two in his hand.

“He still has problems choosing”

“Who do you like more? Mom or Dad?” a family friend had once asked a then 7-year old Siddharth at a party.
“I like mom more”, he had responded back then.

Siddharth’s relationship with his father was always pretty strained. Mr. Krishnan wasn’t a tyrant or anything, but he was just one of those who believed in fathers behaving more like fathers and less like a friend.

But Siddharth had gone onto master diplomacy in time, and had once stated eloquently at a debate competition while in high school.
“Science and history are both important. Who is to tell me what precedes what? One prompts us to cast our minds back on what had once happened thus helping us take a decision based on fact and experience. The other’s constantly evolving to help us reach out for a better future. Choosing from Science and History is an uphill task. It is almost like asking some kid who he loves more. His father or mother?”

Savitri’s eyes blinked rapturously even as she watched Siddharth flip through the newspaper hurriedly.
“I am sure he would be skipping the ‘Politics section’”
Siddharth, she believed was too apolitical. He had never expressed a direct affinity for any specific political party or ideology.
Even when Mr. Krishnan and his friends would get along and discuss politics over a cup of evening coffee and bring down the house over a friendly banter arising out of conflicting political ideologies or a seemingly innocent political remark, Siddharth would not say anything.

“He is too apolitical”, Savitri reminded herself.

“Well is he?” she asked herself.

She reminisced about the time Siddharth had to be coaxed heavily into writing the GRE primarily because he felt all those doing their masters were just selling their ideas to dimwitted Americans.
He had once argued vehemently with his father for their housemaid, because he believed she deserved a hike. He did not have any specific affection for branded items and strongly detested blind following of age-old rituals and traditions.

“Is he that apolitical after all?” Savitri asked herself.
“If my estimations are correct, he is a leftist masquerading as an apolitical soul”

The clock had struck two by then. Savitri watched Siddharth get up yet again, sensing some announcement.
Ram was watching the whole proceedings now in conjunction with her.

“I guess its time for him to go inside for the security check. There he is walking towards us. Maybe he’s coming over to take leave”

Siddharth walked out of the main entrance towards Savitri and Ram.

“I am done with the immigration already. Did you hear the announcement? The flight’s delayed by half an hour. So, that gives me thirty more minutes in this room. I think, you guys should get going now”, he stated.

Savitri kept looking at her only son. Teary-eyed and almost pale, she enquired out of the blue, “You are a leftist, aren’t you?”

Siddharth stared back clueless. He couldn’t make sense of his mother’s sudden intrigue. He just kissed Savitri on her forehead, shook hands with Ram and walked inside yet again.

Ram’s restlessness at having had to spend an entire morning doing absolutely nothing had multiplied vigorously. He stomped his feet and looked at Savitri, his eyes begging for a reprieve.

Savitri meanwhile had got back to leaning on the glass yet again. She tried everything Ram had instructed her to do earlier but came back in a defeatist tone
“I think I have lost sight of him yet again Ram. Could you trace him back for me?”