In between Mitten Twitten

When you board a propeller powered plane, you know that you are going someplace obscure. And to add to it, when you board a prop plane along with only five other people, one of whom is handcuffed and accompanied by a police officer, you are going to someplace really obscure. The handcuffed guy looked pretty scared actually, and sullenly kept looking out of the window in the seat across from me. But I really couldn’t help chuckling fatly when J leaned forward and whispered in a low conspiratorial voice, ‘ This is the real Con-Air, man.’

J, who had been to the place before gave me a cryptic clue to describe the place as we pulled our bags from the luggage belt – ‘ Behind every tree in Shetlands is a beautiful woman.’ And turns out, there were absolutely no trees in the island. I had expected a cold swept place, considering it’s at the northern tip of the UK where the shrubs would be bent in grotesque shapes by a wind that is generally more powerful than gravity. However, I was taken by surprise at the beautiful landscape of rolling green fields with ponies, llamas (yes, I even took a picture for those who wouldn't believe), puffins and lighthouses with the ocean crashing in on all sides of the narrow road between the Sumburg airport and the town of Lerwick where we were headed. The taxi driver was a tiny feisty old woman was not only chatty but also a lot of fun. Saying that she hardly gets visitors to the town of Lerwick, she was determined to show us what a wonderful town it was. To the point of pulling up near a bushy pony and teaching me how to pat them without annoying them enough to have a nip at your hand. And the stories that she narrated about the island made me gasp, giggle and give mock sighs of disbelief. The story of two warring family factions who fly their kids on a private chopper every week to a school in the adjacent island, about the arrested guy on our flight who was actually her friend’s grandson who got into drugs, about how there were no prisons on the island, about the lighthouse that was soon to be converted into a bed-and-breakfast. Her stories could have most certainly put the storyline of Desperate Housewives to shame.

As the sun set over an abandoned pier except for a skeleton boat, she stopped besides what seemed like a house that could have been the set for those shows you find in amusement parks, that would most likely be called The House of Horrors. This, is your hotel, she says with a bright grin that doesn't match the murkiness of the hotel ahead. The inside of the hotel, was not so bad, and was actually slightly charming. My room was ancient, as if someone had preserved the room of a loved one who had died in 1882. It came with fading scarlet wallpaper, copies of Shakespeare, a trouser press and a bathtub that could stand on its own legs. And a spiral turret balcony from where I could see the entire pier slowly starting to glow in embers as the sun was setting and the lights were coming on.

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As I sit by the light from daffodil shaped lamps and watch boats sail by in the misty horizon from my window and write this, I think that I would rather not be anywhere else but in this ocean of obscurity.