A heaven called home!

I sat by the window and gazed at the trees and the houses outside. It was a lazy afternoon when the whole colony was devoid of any sort of activity. I was alone at home and hence let my mind wander and have it’s escapade. The power of the mind is really invincible as it can make the journey of thousands of kilometers in a few seconds. Now it stationed itself in my hometown in India. The thoughts and memories of my hometown churned a whirlpool of feelings drowning me completely in it.

I remembered “amma”, who was my babysitter. She used to run around the house for me trying to give me a bath. It was her duty to apply oil and sandalwood paste to my skin. She used to provide justification to the anointment of the balms and pastes, which sounded very weird to me then. She said “You’ll get a good husband if you apply oil”. I still don’t know if the oil earned me my husband. She had outlandish stories to tell me, which comprised of strange places beyond the river in our village. At that time, to go to some place beyond the river was a task that no decent girl ought to have done. My curiosities were satisfied by her fictious tales.

I remembered running around the house and embracing my grand mother from behind just to treat my senses to the smell of the jasmine flowers which adorned her hair. She used to admonish me for having disturbed the course of her puja and used to ask God for a thousand apologies for the “sin” I had committed. I watched my mother as she patiently went about with the household chores, silently just like the ox which ploughs the field as if it was it’s duty. My mother, I always felt should have been a nurse, as she had a healing touch. I remembered the days I was sick with fever, she used to sit up the whole night changing the wet cloth over my forehead. Her very presence reassured me that I would become alright. I used to enter a deep slumber with my head resting on her lap, which is the most secure place in the world. For me she was a warrior who protected me, a fairy who granted all my wishes, my friend who played with me and a sister in whom I can confide.

All of a sudden on this afternoon in UK, these memories brought a storm of emotions, which welled out of my eyes as rivers of tears, leaving deep and dark furrows on my cheeks…How I missed my hometown….How my inner self longed to get back to were I belong…These years spent abroad, away from home, flashed across my eyes as swift as a fleeting moisture less cloud…I observed the transition in me from rice, avakkai (pickle) to bread, croissants…I remembered the little girl with huge black innocent eyes, with oiled and neatly braided hair, who used to run around with the postman from house to house…I found the same girl now dressed in designer wear, with the same black eyes devoid of innocence…

I sensed a regret brewing within me….I should have gone back to India, when I was bearing our future within my womb…I could have gone back when they were still young, they wouldn’t have known the difference. I could have moved when they in their early schooling years…It would have been difficult for them, but eventually things would have settled….But, now was too late…Was it that late?? The ring of the phone interrupted the chain of thoughts…It was from the office…Our business had won a huge contract, which would be a huge prestige to our family…and that would mean some more time away from the kids and returning to India seemed 5 years away….After this contract, it will be something else…another contract, the kids, their weddings…and home coming seemed farther away…

Oh!! I didn’t introduce myself….so stupid of me…I’m an NRI (Non Returning Indian)