Expected Time of Arrival

After spending nearly five hundred days out of India, I am back for a month. To mislead my parents, I had told them that my date of arrival was going to be December 14. Instead, thanks to the immense cooperation from my sibling, numerous friends, and all my students, teachers, colleagues and supervisors, I was able to leave the US one week before semester actually got over and arrive in New Delhi on the night of December 7, that is, one whole week before my parents were expecting me.

I landed only twenty minutes late from the scheduled time of arrival, which isn’t too bad considering the fact that Idaho is in northwest USA, meaning that I had to travel halfway around the world to arrive here. My dear friend, Deepak, was there at the Indira Gandhi International Airport to pick me up, and all that I remember saying or doing for most of our drive through dusty Gurgaon was clutching his shoulder and shrieking, "D, I AM here!"

My brother was already in the loop, so when he walked us in to the house, I immediately went to wake up my parents. My father’s first words were, "Who? What?" and then "How? Suddenly?"

My mother’s reaction was far more dramatic, and to die for. Those five minutes were the entire reason behind this whole conspiracy. This is how it went:
1. Blinked eyes several times and said, "Who? How?"
2. Hugged me.
3. Let go.
4. Hugged again.
5. Let go.
6. Wept.
7. Asked the same questions again.
8. Hugged again.
9. Let go.
10. Touched my face.
11. Asked the same questions yet again.
12. Looked confused about life, her own existence, my arrival, why the earth revolves, Sudan’s problems, etc. And she wasn’t wearing her glasses, which added to the overall confusion even more.
13. Finally, she lamented, "But we couldn’t go to the airport!"
14. And eventually when it dawned that the greatest emotion to be derived from my arrival was not sorrow for not being able to drive to the airport in the middle of the night to pick me up, but instead happiness that I was finally here, she said, "Did your father know this all along? How could he not tell me?"