The Homecoming...

I had started looking forward to coming back. “Home, sweet home” I longed; and yet, every homecoming, here or there, is full of such mixed emotions. I wondered this morning, as I landed at the airport, why did I not feel that gravitational pull here? Was I tired? Was I sleepy? Was I really not looking forward to a house with no house help (note: I had been perfectly happy with my part time house help arrangement before I left and yet suddenly, I longed for the kind of help I had become so used to in this month, just one month in India- so easy to get used to being pampered!)? Or, was it just because in spite of my many many years here, I had no roots here, only offshoots of material happiness? I think it was the last one. I had not stayed in India for such a long time in years; and I was in no mood to glorify the ‘up and coming’ and yet confused mess that daily life there is; and yet, I felt more drawn to it while travelling on NH 1 ample number of times this time…I saw what I had seen decades before. The filth, the dirt, the poverty, the daily struggle to survive, the green fields, the crammed public transport buses, the lack of civic sense, the piles of garbage on the roadside; and in middle of all this, an obstinate will to live, survive, hope and rise above the given lot.  I was overwhelmed by the over concerned well-wishers, and to some extent, had started getting stifled by this over pouring of emotion; and  yet, I realized the quietness of being alone was no better. I guess I am trying to find a balanced life while living in two extreme worlds…and that is precisely the reason of my mixed emotions this time. My own house looks new, the streets look bigger, life seems same as I had left it a month back; and yet, I can hear an emptiness echoing…I think I have forgotten to go with the flow! That’s all!!