The people moved with ease even at that early hour, roused from their slumber, at the airport. He saw a sea of faces flowing like water to their destinations like a wide river, down the aisles. Nearing eighty, he walked slowly towards the check-in counter looking up at the plasma screens on the walls displaying the arrival and departure times.

He saw the old lady fumbling with her wallet, trying to make her way towards the counter. The wallet fell open in the ground and he bent forward to pick it up for her. He noticed the photo inside and could vividly remember it being clicked by his father as he stood with his now lost sister near the banks of the holy Ganges in 1950 during the Kumbh Mela, her dimples and curly hair all over her forehead.

He instinctively looked up at her. The dimples were still intact!