Gate 42C of Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport takes you back in time. As you descend the two storeys from the other gates, you move from plush carpeting to linoleum floors, out of the silent airport to gates where flights are announced on speakers and yelled out by staff members.

Uniformed staff have given way to a middle-aged woman in salwar kameez and cardigan, with a name tag around her neck, talking on the phone to her son who has or has not yet eaten breakfast.

AUTHOR

Aditi Rao

Aditi Rao is a writer, teacher and potter. She is the founder of Tasawwur, an arts-for-social-change programme for teenagers in Delhi, the author of two collections of poetry, The Fingers Remember (2014) and A Kind of Freedom Song (2019), and the “happy” in HappyMess Ceramics. She also teaches creative and academic writing and is currently working on her first non-fiction book, a collection of oral histories of Indian women raised by single women. She splits her time between New Delhi and Shimla.

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