Rao’s car waited downstairs before the fan had even finished its first crooked rotation of the morning.
Ma checked my bag for the fourth time.
“Passport?”
“Here.”
“Letter?”
“Here.”
“Medicine?”
“In the front pocket.”
“Admit card?”
“Ma,” I said. “I’m changing continents, not sitting for an exam. There is no admit card.”
She clicked her tongue. “They should have one. Then I’d know where to shout if something goes wrong.”
We stepped out into air that smelled of early traffic and last night’s damp. Rao leaned against the car, arms folded, looking for all the world like this was just another library drop-off.
“Valen,” he said. “Mrs. Valen.”
Ma folded her hands automatically. “Rao-saab.”
“In,” he said. “The world will not wait for your nerves to settle.”
After three hours we were in front of Delhi Airport
“In my day, we took trains and were grateful,” Rao muttered.
Inside, the terminal was all glass, light, and announcements in three languages. We stood in a small island of our own while the crowd flowed around us: business travellers with uncreased shirts, families juggling children and bags, workers carrying their whole lives in one faded suitcase.
“Security first,” Rao said. “Then check-in.”
We moved through it in stages. Trays. Scanners. A polite stranger telling Ma to remove her bangles. The arch humming as I walked through, the panel flickering green.
At the international departures hall, Rao stopped.
Beyond this point, only passengers and authorised staff.
He looked at Ma. “They have a procedure,” he said. “Parents can escort minors up to the aircraft door if they register. You should go with him. I will wait here.”
Ma’s fingers tightened on her purse. “I don’t know airport rules,” she said. “What if I do something wrong?”
“He knows the rules better than the staff,” Rao said dryly. “He’ll drag you through them. My presence will only make everyone self-conscious.”
He turned to me.
“You,” he said, “will walk your mother to the plane. And you will leave her in a state that does not require me to deal with a factory uprising in your absence.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
His eyes rested on me for a moment longer than necessary.
“The Institute will take you far,” he said. “Remember who pushed you to the library steps.”
“The guard?” I asked.
He snorted. “Out,” he said. “Before I change my mind and lock you in the stacks.”
He clapped my shoulder once—brief, solid—and stepped back.
“Go,” he said.
The staff at the check-in counter wore the same professional patience I’d seen on invigilators. Their eyes skimmed my documents, my age, the Institute’s sponsorship codes. A small flag lit up on their panel.
“Institute group?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “We’ve already checked in the others. You’ll be escorted to the lounge and boarded together.”
The others.
My stomach did something that felt very much like an exam-hall flutter.
We got Ma an escort pass.
“Don’t lose this,” she muttered at it.
We walked down the departure corridor to a quieter gate area than the general hall. A sign over the door read:
INTERNATIONAL – GATE 12
“Institute of Inter-World Studies group?” an agent asked as we approached.
“Yes,” I said.
“Your mother can accompany you until the aircraft door,” she said in accented Hindi. “After that, our cabin crew will take over.”
Ma nodded. Her eyes flicked around, taking in the polished floors, the big glass windows, the view of the plane waiting outside: long body, wide wings, the Institute’s logo discreetly painted near the nose.
“It’s very big,” she whispered.
“It’s medium,” I said. “The big ones carry people who already know how to do what I’m going to learn.”
She didn’t answer that.
We had maybe twenty minutes before boarding. We sat in a corner row of chairs near the window.
“Eat something,” Ma said, immediately producing a small parcel from her bag like a magician. Two rotis, some dry sabzi, carefully wrapped. “Plane food will be strange.”
“Airlines have entire teams for this, Ma,” I said. “They won’t serve me bolts.”
She gave me a look.
I ate.
Silence stretched between mouthfuls, dense with all the things we’d already said and the ones we couldn’t.
“When you feel…” she began, then stopped, searching for a word big enough. “When you feel… too small there, remember you’ve already survived worse rooms than any classroom they have.”
The factory. The doctor’s pronouncement. The interview hall.
“I’ll remember,” I said.
Boarding was called.
“Institute group,” the agent called. “Please line up.”
We stood.
At the gate, Ma’s escort pass was scanned along with my boarding pass. We walked the jet bridge together, a metal tunnel smelling of cold air and the ghosts of other departures.
At the aircraft door, a senior attendant greeted us.
“Welcome,” she said. “You’re with the Institute group? Seats are in the forward cabin. We’ll take him from here, ma’am, once you say your goodbyes.”
Ma’s hand clenched on my arm.
“Two minutes,” she told the attendant.
“Of course,” the woman said, stepping aside.
Ma turned to me.
Up close, I could see every line at the corners of her eyes, carved there by years of squinting at bad light and worse decisions.
“You will call,” she said. “From France. If you can’t, you will send something that can be held in a hand.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And if…” She stopped. Swallowed. “If they are unkind, you remember: you are not there by their charity. You are there because you made a path when there wasn’t one.”
“I know,” I said.
She took my face between her hands, thumb rough against my cheek.
“Study well,” she whispered. “Live long.”
Her forehead touched mine for a heartbeat. Then she stepped back before either of us could make a scene.
“Go,” she said roughly. “Before I decide France is not ready for you.”
She handed me to the attendant like I was something valuable and breakable. Then she turned and walked back up the jet bridge without looking back.
The empty space she left at my side felt larger than the cabin.
The forward cabin was… not economy.
Instead of tight rows, there were wide seats arranged two-by-two, each in its own shell, with more legroom than my entire bed back home. Soft lighting. Real pillows. Screens the size of small televisions.
Twelve kids were already there.
I registered them the way I used to scan an exam hall: quickly, systematically.
A tall boy with dark skin and a sharp undercut, wearing a blazer with a Guardian guild emblem half-hidden under his boarding pass lanyard.
A girl with close-cropped curly hair and a scar along her left cheekbone, reading a slim book in French. She sat like a coiled spring, scanning the cabin between paragraphs.
A boy whose clothing screamed Central Guild City: layered neutrals, discreet but expensive watch, shoes too clean. He looked bored, which meant he was terrified.
A girl in a simple salwar kameez with “Dhaka Gate School” embroidered on the sleeve, fingers tracing a pattern on the armrest in rhythm with her breath.
The rest blurred into a collage of different geographies and the same expression: a mix of hope, exhaustion, and the dawning realization that this was no longer hypothetical.
An attendant guided me to an empty seat near the window.
“Seat 2A,” she said. “You’re all in this cabin. It’s reserved for the Institute’s new admissions.”
“Reserved?” I repeated, trying not to imagine the price tag.
She smiled.
I sat. The seat tried to swallow me whole.
As the remaining parents were gently extracted and sent back up the jet bridge, the cabin settled.
The tension eased, a little. Familiar pattern: new class, jockeying for position in the most harmless way available—sarcasm.
The cabin door closed with a soft thump.
The inertia pushed me deeper into the seat and the humming of engines reached my ears
"Well then, Open Archive" I muttered