Home, Sweet home

A place to paint our little dreams,
A shoulder to cry when none comes true,
A rooftop to shout out the simple joys,
A street to rebel, even if it may be vain;
It’s just bits and bytes afloat in ether
Yet home, when it all comes together.

Returning home is a bitter sweet idea – the happy memories of childhood faced off against the the nagging fear that the outcome could be the total and absolute erasure of those very memories.

Every time I think of home, I am reminded of green mangoes, gossip at the peaceful temple grounds, gorgeous saris, family and friends I can share childhood jokes with, the smell of fresh mud after a rain, and just the simple happiness of belonging. But then I also hear about hartaals and bandh, and violence and rape, and moral police and racism – and I wonder whether the home that remains is the one I remember.

Procrastination is my usual solution to that dilemma. Deciding by not deciding. Action by inaction. Call it what you may, but it’s something that is tucked away in the far recesses of my brain.

Come to think of it, its not that different for one’s virtual home, is it? Your blog is your virtual home, and imagine that at some stage, perhaps due to a passing whim or a well-thought out decision, you choose to leave it behind. You have had enough. Or you want to explore what lies beyond. Or maybe because you thought that your homepage is more of a page than a home. Just one of the millions of websites that linger on the outskirts of the blogosphere. Not very different from living in one of the millions of home dotting this earth, is it really?

I missed this home. For 1 year 1 month and 24 days, I wanted to come back. I tried to remember the many good reasons I left this home behind, not one of them resolved yet. With the drop of a hat, I had packed my bags and said my goodbyes. I was off to unknown shores. I wrote in several random blogs – blame it on the ease in which you can start up one – but something just didn’t feel right. I missed writing here. I missed standing by my writing. But most of all, I missed the friends I had made here.

I am finally back. Back where I can write my fears away. Where, then, I move from hope to confidence. Where I celebrate my happiness. Where I cry about my lost dreams. where I remember days long past. Where I can curl up on a sofa, prop up legs with the laptop neatly balanced, retreat from the cruel world outside and discover the haven that is only mine.

I know not what I will write about. Will it be the same or be beyond my own recognition? I can’t see beyond the one post I am writing now. It worries me that I will have nothing to say, it worries me that I will say all the wrong things. It somehow seems harder when you start again. As if the whole village is waiting for the NRI to act like an arrogant firangi. As if the kids next door expect you to pull out a rabbit out of your hat. Yet it’s time to come home. The solution is no more to run away further, but to start on the slow path home. Shall I start with this one?

I ended my last post by writing about change, the faithful puppy that keeps following me around despite my impatient kicks.

“As I realise and accept once again that change is the only thing that is constant in life – the silence of silent eloquence will just be yet another change”

Now, it’s again time to give the eloquence a try.