The first route that I ever learned in this world was the one that took me from my house to my school where I studied from kinder garden till junior school. That was where I made my first ever friends, some of which have come all the way along in the course of a quarter century. My first few memories of myself go to a house where I grew up from a toddler to a school going teen ager, where I played with my siblings and my cousins and where we developed a passion for dogs as the best pets. I shared a single room with my brother and sister, where we studied for our exams before each of us made our way through life and now we don't even live in a city common to any of us. Those memories go back to the afternoons when I sometimes played alone by myself in the garden outside, where we experienced the rain as it trickled down the tin shed and gushed down in narrow streams, where we sat outside by the fire in winter eating peanuts and drinking tea. We also went to a common school for may years. When it rained, school will flood with knee deep water and though hated by teachers and parents alike, those were the best days at school for us. It was a small school and even the local popcorn vendor outside knew us all by name. I spent most my time at school practicing for skits and speeches and debates and life still held true to its definition of childhood.
High school was a bigger place, lots more students around and gradually I was drawn into a mess which hasn't ended till date. The fun of school was vanishing into the cramming of day and night. Yet there was fun in the jokes that the classmates cracked, in the little birthday treats that we had by the bakery in front of the school, which looks all cluttered and cramped up now when I pass by. The photocopy shop where we lined up just before the exams was nothing less than a hang out place of the town. Life moved on, people moved on to become doctors, engineers, soldiers, managers and on the way most faces got lost in the crowd.
What remained unchanged was the place where I could come back at the end of the day and call it a home. Little did I realize that life was changing never to fold back. My sister left for engineering school and it was a big moment for us. My parents were proud that she went to an IIT and I dreamt of making it there some day as well. Cramming of day and night became intense as the schooling was drawing to a close. The default routine of going to school and coming back home was coming to a full stop. No more school dress and no more school bags, mom's never gonna pack the lunch box for me the same way ever again and my dad's never again gonna pick me up for home. It was time to leave the home like I had done never before and though I had waited for the day when I will make it to an engineering school, I had never realized that this was it, home is never gonna be home the same way again.
Though I packed my bags and left for college, lived freely in hostel and some say and so do I that those were the best four years of my life but yet every holiday and every break I would come back to the same old place called home. It was a routine to catch up with school friends who lived just a few streets away from my house and sometimes we would also get together and visit some of our teachers who were still in schools. In our memories they will always be as young as they were when we were in school but only when we met them the stark reality hit us hard that our teachers are growing old and so are we. Little did we realize that all this while time was passing by.
College was over and now our lives were more refined. Each of us knew what way we were headed to. I came to states to pursue some of the dreams I saw while I was in college. Some friends stayed behind to join management schools and others quietly sunk into the real life with a job in their hands and marriage proposals transforming into life long bonds. How quickly life sped by no one realized. In my dreams I still find myself sometimes in a school, sometimes in hostel lobbies and sometimes waking up to realize that I am not at home! Home, still remained so. Whenever I went back to India, everything overwhelmed me as all the memories came flowing back into my mind. It was a constant in my life which held everything together, a pivot around which my life was loosely wound and left without it, it will be a badly tangled mess.
Yet, home has started to change its meaning. It no longer is what it used to be. Its no longer a place where me, my brother and my sis played as a kid. Its no longer a place where we crammed up for our exams and its no longer a place where I returned to quietness from school. It's no longer where I spent my days writing some stupid poetry in solitude or where I sketched my first pencil and charcoal sketches. It's no longer the place where we fought as siblings and no longer the place where my mom had to be summoned to make the truce. Its no longer the place where dad used to establish the disciple and no longer the place where we watched cartoons and flicks together on a single TV in the house. Home has changed. It's a place now where my nephew and niece are learning to take their first steps in life and where they charm everyone with every syllable they utter. It's in their clatter and chaos that the soul of the house lives. It's a different story. Over the years the house has changed in the look, the furniture and also in the people who make it. We have grown and moved apart, Bhabhi and kids became part of our lives, dad has become more reticent but I guess mom has still remained quite the same. I think the memories of our lost days live in our hearts, the siblings and our parents, as to what it was and what it was like raising us.
Why does all this comes back to me one sudden day when I sit thousands of miles away from the place where these memories were built? A couple of days back I got the news that my brother got a new job in Ahmadabad and will soon be moving to a new place in a couple of months. My heart instantly went out for my parents. I did not want them to be left alone by themselves. The only thing I wanted was that they should move to the new city with my brother. Later, when I talked to my sister, I learnt that she was equally upset about my parents. I felt better only after talking to my brother who said that he would ensure that mom and dad moved out with him sooner or later. Once I had the assurance, my thoughts went to what my parents (and in the process, we) would be leaving behind. All the memories of my life take me back to the place which I have know as home all these days. Taking the same streets back home over and over again uncountable times. What my parents leave behind is much more because when I was born I never saw any of my paternal grand parents. I have only heard their stories from my parents and aunts and uncles in explicit narratives of how they were, where they lived, how the house and the place had been over the years, how the neighborhood had changed and how their generation had been the heart and soul of the place before each of us came into being. Leaving the place which has existed through us over the years takes a certain part of us when we leave and which will always stay there no matter what. True, change is the most unchanging thing in life but I had never seen this coming in my life. Wiping out the roots and establishing them in an unknown land. I am sure it will be exciting and I will embrace whatever life offers with open arms but my heart will always stay in the place which I have known as home all these days. I will probably wake up at nights dreaming of it and be happy to have gone back for those brief moments.
Mom, sometimes I wish the times would just be the same when you used to tie my ponytails and pack my lunch for school and when I would come home always to find you there!
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