The trip back home

“Tonight this fool’s half way to heaven and just a mile from hell
and he feels like going home”
Bruce Springsteen (Almost)

Like clockwork, I would grow grumpy on the day of departure from home. In all the four years that I spent at College of Engineering (Pune) Hostels, each time I left home (Nashik) to go back to the Hostels, my mood would take a drastic downturn.

I would procrastinate on getting my bag packed. To every question that my mom asked, I would reply icily. Eventually they left me alone in my child-like sulking. It wasn’t until I awoke next morning, on my one inch thick bed at the hostel, and made my way to brush my teeth in front of what certainly can’t be called a polished mirror, that I accepted the fact I was finally not at home.

Sulking simply wasn’t an option when I hauled 64 kilos and then some through the Mumbai Airport and left India. How would sulking help? I wasn’t going to see my family again for a while and I simply was to accept that fact. It is a different kind of sadness. One that has no antidote.

Except perhaps when I make my way home again.

A superior form of anticipation… One that trails like an angelic halo as you make your way through security checkpoints, check in, waiting lounges and countless time zones. You arrive finally in humid Bombay nights to the same smiling faces you remember when you last departed.

The circle is complete. It starts at home, it ends at home. An unadulterated happiness.

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