See through my eyes

Until last year I had only travelled within India, but it had so much to offer that I never complained. Then last year my passport got its first Visa stamp, to Seychelles. What a breathtakingly beautiful place. Ask me my favourite memory? The 3 hours stop over at Dubai Airport.
It’s the best place to shop my troupe said. But I sat there not worried about shopping or eating or having coffee. I had the World laid out in front of me. One would say if you think Dubai Airport was the world, wait till you see The Times Square. But I don’t care. Dubai Airport is what I saw. I knew people from different parts look different, dress different, have different hair and accents. But to see it all together. My movies had come to life.
The gum chewing American girl, with ultra huge headphones, those awkward kids from Nepal looking odd in their rubber slippers, the Japanese couple who walked 10 inches away from each other and the Mexican looking couple (I can only guess) with their arms wrapped tight around each other. The people, that’s all I could look at. All so different and yet so same.
As I sat there, a sound I had heard before reached me. Bengali, the language from the far east of my land. I turned around to see an elderly Bengali couple, she, in her green cotton saree and he, in his blue shirt buttoned tight. If I know my country right they were going to visit their pregnant daughter to some faraway land. He looked disapprovingly at something and I turned to see what it was. There she was, a skimpy bright orange top, her curves oozing out, a tight leather skirt and jewels studded heels. They were discussing her, as she strutted around getting her children some doughnuts and hot chocolate. He didn’t approve of her, maybe because of what she wore and yet she was doing all that a mother was meant to do. The Bengali lady kept quiet, but there was an expression of amazement on her face, awe for the woman in the skimpy orange top.
A little later, I found the couple sitting in a café but mostly being unnoticed by the crowd. And then it happened. A man… Irish, Polish I wish I could tell, came and told the lady that it was the most beautiful outfit he had seen. She re-arranged the edge of her saree and smiled crookedly. I saw the Bengali woman for a third time in the ladies room much later. The woman in the orange top was there too. This time the look in the Bengali woman’s eye had changed. Just as it was for me, this was the World for her and she had been noticed.