Arrival

In all the trips I remember from childhood, we arrive in India late at night. I suppose that's how it works from the East Coast - you take a night flight to cross the Atlantic, layover somewhere like any other where in Europe, and fly through the day, losing time to midnight when you finally touch down. Consequently my first breath of Indian air is inevitably the petrol-inflected, thick, humid but noticeably cooling draft of late nights on the tarmac, waiting for the bus to take us to the terminal, looking out over jets that look like sharks in the murky soup of diffracted hazy light. You feel underwater, a bit, and I feel somewhat at home.