My Dream Hug

[A hug is very nearly the ultimate form/expression of support. Here, I'd just like to share an 'experience' I had not long ago; wherein I received my dream hug from someone in need of support (and hugged her back duuh!). Dedicated to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4]


It was early morning in the airport: you know those low-cost flights which charge you cheap and make you stay up the previous night cuz theres no point sleeping just 2 hours when you gotta reach the airport at like 0430 hours. So anyway, it was early morning, it was in the airport, and we were all half conscious as anyone would be if they hadn't slept a night and had no reason to be excited. The unpolluted air of the early morning Bangalore air (ya, weird phrase) had me wheezing throughout the journey to the airport. Swine flu had broken out, and I feared I would be sent for testing or what-not, and might even end up missing my flight.

But that was half-worry. The wheezing was like most early-morning wheezings and was just a temporary phase between getting my body into action and getting my body used to the action. Ya, so it was temporary. As with it, so was my worry.

In the airport, there were a few people in masks. Actually, hardly anyone, but that was the first time I had got to see a swine flu mask. I vividly remember looking at some kind of bulletin board when it happened. Somehow, my vivid memory tells me that the bulletin board was very like the black pin-up-letters board in our hostel where the reps' and secys' names are pinned up. Anyhow, so here I am, looking up at this bulletin board, and then from behind me comes a young lady. I guess she'd be hardly 6 years older than me, with keen piercing eyes behind spectacles, a scarf around her neck due to the cold early morning of Bangalore, and just generally looking fairly hep. She was wearing a mask.

Shortly after her, came another youngster female. This one was wearing I think jeans and a green T-shirt: green of a shade a bit darker than my favourite light green T-shirt. She was coughing and sneezing away, and as I looked, a lot of people were blatantly avoiding her. The previous female then said aloud, “Why don't you get yourself tested, dear?!”, then walked up to her, tapped her on her cheek, and walked on. The poor sick girl then broke down, turned towards us sitting in our seats, and croaked emotionally, “Could anyone give me a hug?” (I think thats what she said, unless it was something like, “Anyone want a hug?” as a plea of mutual need.)

I guess I felt a kind of empathy then. After all, I had myself felt the fear the of rejection and the fear of being an odd-one-out merely because of a little wheezing on my way to the airport. On that impulse, I stood up and walked towards her. She gave me a very emotional sort of smile and extended her arms as she approached.

We embraced then. Hugged, whatever. Now, I have hugged, and been hugged before this, but the moment I did it, I knew it was the ultimate hug, the perfect hug, my dream hug! We leaned into each other, her head on my shoulder, mine on her head. Our bodies leaning into each other had both of us siphon off our troubles, dissipating into the air by themselves. It was a relief physically as well, our bodies' cushoining the other's. There were no words spoken, and yet as if psychically, we knew how to cling to each other.

Inevitably, it ended. I turned away and went back to my seat. For a while, my mind was blank, my breaths deep, calm. It was a fleeting few moments, shared with a complete stranger, and yet so much more beautiful than most times with friends. It was born out of probably mutual need, and in the end, it left us both feeling whole and satisfied.

This truly and literally, was my dream hug.


[I wanna know what you think of the flow; how much does this hold you. And whether the important parts have been dealt with satisfactorily, or there is some discrepancy in how the description is overdone at some places etc]