The Home Coming

The sky was still dark, as the Lord of the day had not made his grand entrance. I peered from the oval window of the plane, tiny yellow and white lights winked at me in a hap-hazardous fashion from the ground below. Had seen it so many times before, and had gone through this scenario several times, but it never fails to take my breath away.
The land I was born was just few hundred feet below me, and was going to be walking on it once again. The decent began, then the huge wheels touched the ground, the jolt of it coursed through my body and mind, my lips whispered, “Ma, I am home.” My child of 16, seated beside me turned and looked at me, a slow smile forming on his lips. He did not say a word, but could read in his eyes that he understood my sentiment. My younger one was busy asking his brother , how long would it take to see his ‘dadu and dida’ waiting outside, were they are already there waiting, did they get the car to take our suitcases, and many such unnecessary questions which muddles a 9 year olds brain.
A trip to India is like a pilgrimage and a vacation package for most of us folks living outside the country borders and especially for those like me who live on the opposite side of the globe. We have made these trips so many times, but the flavor of these trips never loses its intensity. We all have our work, family and world in the place we live, yet the sense of coming back ‘home’, as I would like to call it, is a feeling to be cherished. Each of us when we make these trips, are wished whole heartedly by our friends and peers who cannot make it that particular year.
On average each family makes a trip to their home town every two years, some are lucky to make it more frequent than others. The obligation of growing kids and the time constraints, limits the travel to the dreaded summer time mostly. Every trip I hear my friends and family warning me about the scorching heat, me and my kids are going to face once I reach. In spite of the terrible heat, dust, smog, mosquitoes and all the crazy traffic, we will come and we will love it every time. May be that is the reason I cannot call these visits other than ‘The Home Coming’. In each of these trips, love comes in so many forms, friend, relative, neighbor and even the food.
Above all these beautiful experiences, the feeling of being in touching with our roots is so very intense, that the trip’s fatigue vanishes like magic. Being one of those Desi Moms, I feel we have a hidden agenda in all these trips. Fun and love is absolutely the apparent part but, the one we often don’t see or may be don’t realize is, we want to keep our children informed with their origin, our origin to be specific. The culture we all keep so close to us when we are living in a different country, is actually lived here.
 
Bringing them to it as often as possible is a way to keep them linked with their ancestral history. A feeling which comes involuntarily, for most of us Desi Parents, and I believe nothing is wrong in a cultural education with its special perks of fun. It is a win-win situation, don’t you agree? As I enjoy my stay before I go back to the hearth I built for myself across the ocean, I wish you all happy trips whenever you do make your ‘home coming’ happen.