I had a mortal fear of missing flights and trains and always made it a point to be the first in queue while boarding. It must have stemmed from years of living with Papa, who had the same fear and would insist that we be at the airport or railway station hours in advance. I remembered waiting at the railway station for three hours one time as sweepers cleaned the platform around us; and another time at the airport when we’d arrived even before the airline had set its counters up for the day. I reached the queue and quickly scanned the crowd for Yudi, figuring I could just join him, but there was no sign of the guy. Had he boarded without me? The nerve of the guy! He really was horribly rude!

I had sulkily joined the queue at the fag end of the line when I spotted Yudi. He was right where I had left him, fast asleep!

‘Yudi! Wake up!’ I shook him awake angrily. ‘We’re going to miss the flight because of you!’

‘Huh?’ Yudi looked startled for a second and rubbed his eyes sleepily ‘What happened?’

‘The flight! Everyone’s boarding already! Let’s go!’ I glared at Yudi but he just yawned and settled back into the chair.

‘They’ve just announced boarding, Megha. Relax,’ he said in an infuriatingly calm manner and shut his eyes again.

‘You can’t just keep sleeping there! We’ll get offloaded!’ I was on the verge of having a minor coronary by now as visions of the flight filling up filled my head. ‘And the hand baggage! We won’t even get any place to keep it! All the overhead bins will be full by now!’

‘God! You really need help!’ Yudi said, suddenly looking very tickled again. ‘Look, why don’t you go ahead before you explode and I’ll join you later? I won’t get offloaded, cross my heart and hope to die!’

With that, he shut his eyes again and I stomped off in a huff. Fine! If that’s the way he wanted it, fine! I certainly wasn’t going to hang around waiting for him while the flight took off.

By the time I reached my seat, having navigated my way past surly airline officials and co-passengers who looked like they’d rather be tucked in bed, I was feeling considerably calmer. Yudi seemed to have the same effect on me as the Momster—he caused my emotional graph to start looking like the Sensex on a particularly volatile day as a result of which my temper would unleash itself in full force. But despite the rocky start we’d had, I was determined to get the day back on track. I had to. After all, this was my new avatar as the mature, in-control career woman. And besides, Operation Separation had to be given half a chance if there was to be any hope of it succeeding, and for that to happen I needed to first control my emotions.

So I smiled sweetly at Yudi when he walked in forty-five minutes later, cool as a cucumber. The flight had been delayed by over an hour and I had been stewing in my seat, praying for it to take off and for Yudi to get left behind so I could prove my point.