My friends from my home city are big men today; some of them are settled abroad, and the oldest from Muzaffarpur is so busy that he doesn’t even know what Facebook is. And Twitter? Ooh! He can’t waste time, there too. His normal car speed in Jeddah is 100 km/hr.

My schoolmates too are big men now. Almost all are officers, some of them so big that their secretaries have to update them about their nails and mails. I am surprised most of them don’t have space to create personal mail ids or liberty to keep private cell phones.

My friends from colleges and universities are either into IAS or are positioned similarly, at higher altars.

All big men. Yes, they were studious. Many of them would study 18 hours, I swear.

And me?

I loved reading Mandrake and Phantom. I also loved listening to radio – be it commentary or songs.

Actually, I wanted to become a train driver. Honestly.

Since my school days, I would travel in train engines. Whenever tickets were tucked, I’d get them cancelled to travel free … to travel in an engine … to taste floating in high speed, time and again.

Each time I would feel as if I am the train on the track … as if the machine dog days are over … and I am the train on the track. I would say, “O God, the good times are here at last.”

Maybe Rose (Kate Winslet) would have felt the same way in Titanic, when Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) helped her ride the sea … and she had said: “I’m flying.”

Alas! I could not become an engine driver. But, God willing, I get to feel the feel (Rose felt).

I want to close my eyes, and go on … stepping up, holding on to the railing. Keeping my eyes closed, stepping up on the railing. Holding on, holding on. Keeping my eyes closed. Trusting my feelings … and opening my eyes, to say: I’m flying! I am flying!! I am flying!!!

O God, I want to sit in the front, watch the sea, touch the air, manoeuvre the ship.

God, I wanna step up into the flying machine, going up, going up, going up … unzipping the sea.