Take Me Home

Growing up you have time to be innocent and a lot of things are not on your plate. You don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from for example (and this is just an example, not gospel). 

There's a special kind of pull a city you've grown up in has on you. A warm, fuzzy feeling inside your chest or a buzz in your head, a slight giddiness at descending from the last step of a plane and realizing that you are home.

I guess that is why Bengalis look forward to Durga Puja so. Isn't it a tale of homecoming too, after all? 

Every house tells a story. The house with the boy you fell in love with, who couldn't marry you because you never told him you loved him, preferring admiration from afar. The house whose lady served you fresh jaggery sweets every winter- home made delicacies that you'd relish.

And one day, ten years have gone by and the house with your first sweetheart is dust underneath the trampled feet of thousands who flock to the mall that has replaced it. The lady with the sweets has moved to Alabama and isn't on Facebook. 

As your childhood dies, you realize that you too have changed. You unlock your BMW and getting into the driver's seat, you put the old alleyways in your rearview.

Country roads do not take you home these days it seems. But then again, the home is where your heart is. 

The Bilge Master