Home Coming..

For me it's a bi-monthly affair. My going to my hometown, that is. Its 'different' to my usual existence here in my power-backed up, vitrified floored, security-guarded, 'thou art a stranger, albeit thou art my neighbour' 10th floor abode. It doesn't feel like moving from one town to the other. It's more like moving from one country to the next. But hey! It was Diwali and the visit was inevitable.

It's always been like that since the last few years. I am always greeted by that scornful gaze from Verma Aunty next door, as I park and disembark. The gaze is the impeccable "Aa gaye sahab!!"Can't blame her for this look now, can I? Considering that we (read the rowdiest bunch of kids of 80s) spared nothing to let her know how we felt about all those plastic balls, which she scampered to pick and hide away as and when we managed to launch them into her porcupine-grassed lawn adorned with her solar cooker (which she loved more than her dear life) while playing our 'domestic' version of cricket.

At least we can do something about the other gaze in waiting, which is as impeccably denouncing as the former. We are wannabe bindaas urban species and that's where we are stuck since last few years…at wannabe!! Hence, there is an implicit agreement to adequately tone-down between me and my wife as we head home. She knows her attire well. In go the noodle-strapped, see-through tops, low waist jeans and knee length skirts. Out come the more acceptable suits, kurtis and sarees. Now you don't want the street dogs go insane with unfamiliarity either, do you?

Anyways, I hop out for morning walk and NO! That guy!!? The one I used to beat up at will and he would go hiding in your mammi's pallu wiping his nose from your thaan wali shirt.!!We sheepishly exchange that 'I wish I never get to see your stupid face again' smile. Why does it always happen that you cross all those rustic fellows at a point, where there is nothing to look around at, and you have no option but to stare the moron right in his face? But wait! What is that luxury sedan doing there, parked right outside your gate? Hello! This is a big mistake. I am supposed to be driving one, not you!! Weren't you supposed to be like selling cotton blouse pieces to fat middle class aunties in Sadar Bazar? You nose-dripping sissy! Now I know. You made the most of your father's stint at PWD. Consoling wisdom dawns - anything can be bought in this knavish world. Sob! Sob!

And then I return, dejected and crestfallen, to see my father enthusiastically waiting for me to go and handover those mithai ka dabbas to all those rishtedars, who I have no clue, as to how they are related to me, till date. All I know that my back will be sore from all those charan-sparsh by the time I am back. And do I actually want to come back, is the more serious question I have to scratch my head for….….I have not been known to be a certified atheist in my khandan for nothing. I cringe with discomfort of the most extreme kind just at the thought of hawans and aartis. Mother has half a dozes pages bookmarked in the aarti book for the evening and I sulk, knowing there is no way I can escape this onslaught.

Albeit all this ado I am subjected to, there is always a reason to go home. I enjoy those little stories about my childhood which my father sometimes tells my wife over tea. I love the tiny sparkles in Riya's (my daughter) eyes at the prospect of her meeting her dadu and dadi, the laid back, gentle trotting pace people spend their time at, like chewing each moment to savour it before it will slide away into yesterday, the smile and the handshake that you get greeted with by those old familiar neighborhood shopkeepers. It still feels like coming back to warm cosy quilt I used to cuddle up inside with mother on cold winter days in the night, tucked away in a little nook, safe from the unforgiving chill. There will always be a reason to go back. It will always feel like home coming….