I am going to cry. I am already crying. It’s that time of the month when am extremely emotional and I just missed my flight home. I made the pug face, desperate mom face and I will die face but they couldn’t let me in. The perils of technology driven system, the good old manual days were so good.

My maiden roots are from an Agarwal family, for us a 3:30 movie meant leave the house at that time, and a 4:15 flight meant reaching the airport around 4:00. There was a sense of achievement in running across the airport, with your name being called on the speaker and being rushed through security by the airline personnel. We felt like celebrities.

Then Mr K happened to my life.

On the day of my engagement, my father-in-law wanted to introduce my family and me to some of his friends. We had just reached back home and I had barely managed to get the decoration off me when we received a call from him to meet in one hour 17 minutes at Breach Candy, Mumbai. It took us 70 minutes to leave our house and another 25 to reach the assigned spot. This is in a time when there was no google. My father-in-law caught our lame lie that we faced 40 minutes of traffic by some minor calculations of the time of the day, wind average and past experience and said that was not possible. Imagine the Agarwals at that moment.

Well! My plight continued even after marriage.

We would all be sitting together chatting and chewing when it would be decided to attend a local wedding. Eight minutes after I had reached the room I would start getting calls asking how much longer I was going to be.

HOW MUCH LONGER?? I was still picking out what to wear.

How do these people do it, I used to wonder.

One day my darling brother-in-law gave me a piece of his mind and I remember sobbing quietly on the right side of the back seat till we reached the party.

And then I discovered… Mineral Make Up.

This was my eureka moment. I could be ready in under ten minutes now, provided I wore the first thing I saw. This coupled with Mr. K’s kind move to drive us to the event separately was a huge relief.

But then I learnt as well. Now I am able to report on Darda time a.k.a. military time. So missing this flight is making me uncomfortable. If this was Malaysian airlines I would console myself that maybe Lord Krishna prevented me from disappearing, but unfortunately it’s not.

I am waiting for a reason why I would have to take the red eye flight back home tomorrow.

Ruchira Darda

I am Ruchira Darda, a relationship coach, parenting expert, author, and entrepreneur with over 16 years of experience. Based in Mumbai, I work extensively in the areas of mindful living and emotional wellness. I am a TEDx speaker and focus on personality identification to help individuals and families build stronger, healthier relationships. I also lead and actively support initiatives such as the Lokmat MahaMarathon.