My Head In the Clouds

It had been a while since I had been home to India. In fact, this was probably the longest I had stayed away since moving countries and becoming an NRI. Life, as it often does, had simply got in the way.

Maybe there is some truth to the old saying about absence making the heart grow fonder. Because this time, I seemed to notice home differently.

Remember being a child and listening to adults say things like, “Look how tall you’ve grown!” Or pointing at an ordinary road and announcing that they used to play there as children? There would be stories about a restaurant they loved growing up, a shop that no longer existed, or a building that had appeared where something else once stood.

I used to listen politely.

Well, somewhere along the way, I seem to have become that adult. Not quite as old as the adults I remember, I would like to clarify.

Coming back after a longer gap made me realise how quietly a home, a city and the people within them change while life is happening elsewhere.

The changes in people are the hardest to miss. Parents, aunts and uncles seem a little more fragile physically, even while remaining as resilient and strong as ever. The younger ones, meanwhile, have outgrown some of their childlike innocence and acquired that unmistakable I know everything gleam in their eyes.

Of course, none of these changes happened overnight. I had simply been away long enough to notice them.

And then there is my beloved home.

Readers of my earlier post about my mother and the peacocks may remember her eternal struggle with the flora and particularly, the fauna that had decided our house belonged to them too. Well, I have an update.

My mother appears to have won. The peacocks have retreated. The pigeons and assorted co-inhabitants seem to have accepted defeat as well. The koyal, thankfully, has resisted eviction, I can still hear its familiar call from the trees nearby.

The flora and fauna may have diminished within our gates, but apparently, they are flourishing perfectly well in the neighbourhood. I discovered this personally when a honeybee stung me right above the eye.

This round goes to the bees.Next time, however, I intend to arrive fully armed and prepared. They have been warned.

And maybe that is the strange thing about coming home after being away for a while. You expect to return to something preserved exactly as you left it. Instead, you find everyone and everything, a little altered.

The people have grown older. The children have grown up. The peacocks have moved out. The bees have moved in. But somehow, amid all that change, it is still home.