Amid the traffic of the airport, the arrivals and departures, the yelling and screaming of children who despise long flights and trips they will never remember, I sit on a side, neither arriving nor departing, reading Lahiri’s The Namesake. A little Pakistani lady, who is guiding the travellers, asks them where they’re headed to. Brazil, Mexico, London, Hong Kong, Germany are among the list of destinations. I read from time to time in an effort to forget these foreign places, these beautiful luxuries. But I cannot forget that I’m once again a lonely watcher, one who waits impatiently for destinations of her own, for places to see, for people to meet, for planes to sit in, legs crossed, reading a book, taking short plane naps. At times I’m lost in the story of my book, intrigued by the characters and their dilemmas, by Gogol’s love affairs and his parents’ objections. I put the book aside and pointlessly, inattentively watch the rest of the passengers who wait in lines longer than our lunch lines, suddenly enjoying my little comfort zone where I’m lost in fiction, in a story that is not mine.