Wednesday 10 June 2015

The Return Journey

There are some tasks which become easy with practice and persistence, like chopping vegetables, jogging a mile, solving algebraic equations. And there are others which never become easier irrespective of the number of times we do them. The top most on that list is leaving home to go back to your hostel .

Until this summer, I'd never come back home for more than a few days from the hostel due to academic commitments. But this is the first opportunity wherein I got to spend a long vacation here.

If the journeys back to hostel were difficult before this one, it's turned impossible this time.

Do you know that heart-wrenching feeling, when your throat is dry and you want to cry, but you're too 'grown-up' for that, and it's a bad thing because all this wanting to cry stays inside you and makes your chest heavy! And I swear that I'm not exaggerating even a tad.

It's a stupid reason to cry: that you're going to follow your dreams, to grow up and learn things. There's not enough justification for the tears and hence they don't come out.

Consider this: it's winter and you enter the warm shower. Stay there for 2 minutes and it's difficult to exit. You leave the shower, nevertheless, because you have to go to work, college, etc.  Now imagine that you have some time and you decide to indulge yourself to a warm bath. You sit in the tub with lots of foam and a book and maybe some music and relax for a couple of hours, and you suddenly realize that it's time to go somewhere out (in the cold) and you gotta leave the warm comfort behind you. That's how I feel after this long holiday home.

Don't get it wrong, the hostel is not bad. The people are pretty good too. And I give good business to telecoms operators each day. But it's just not the same.

There's no pampering back at hostel. It's just not like home: where I am showered with hugs and kisses all the time, I get fed well before I feel hungry, it becomes my fundamental right to sleep beside Mom each night (leaving Dad to settle somewhere else) , where I am the center of their universe and everything I love to eat is stocked. I am Mom's designated driver, trolley pusher, errands person, kitchen help, shopping assistant. Mom is the guinea pig for my recipes and she cruelly snatches away the cup of tea and hands me a mug of milk, "Tare calcium levu joiye, chai ma na hoi kai nutrients, growing age che!". (You need calcium in this growing age, don't drink tea, it doesn't have any nutritients)  I've to claim that I'm full at two rotis, if I want 4 . She stuffs me with the mangoes I heartily dislike because she likes them. And Papa calls me every evening to ask if I want anything from the market. Every evening.

There is no end to the list, and no saturation point to accept and give all the love.

I'll have to pack my bags in a couple of days, but I'm not done yet. I am not done being pampered, I've not yet gone for enough dinners and drives with my Sister and my brother-in-law (check out my previous post), Mom thinks I still haven't piled on enough fats to help me survive at hostel and I still haven't gotten around to making Dad buy himself some new shirts.

As Nazim Ali so aptly states,

"Ek muddat baad mili qed se aazadi.....
Par jab mili aazadi, To pinjre se pyar ho gaya......"

8 comments:

  1. It was such a pleasure reading it ... N I cud soo much relate to it now dat I live in a hostel in the same city as yours ..!!!loved it. Love ya 😘

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    1. Very good!! Loved reading it!! I am not in hostel yet I feel the same as I am far from parents. Wrote well little sis.

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    2. Very good!! Loved reading it!! I am not in hostel yet I feel the same as I am far from parents. Wrote well little sis.

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    4. Very good!! Loved reading it!! I am not in hostel yet I feel the same as I am far from parents. Wrote well little sis.

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  2. I miss my home even more now 😭

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  3. Awesomely written... hindi me kehte h naa dil nikaal k rkh diya...its like that....wrote ur feelings...as well as this story frightened me of returning back to hostel

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  4. Very well written.....👌

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