Returning Home

I had never felt happier before…not for quite some time….

The announcement for the Durg Chhapra Express had been done and I, standing on platform no.-5 with two bags and a heart full of nostalgia could hardly wait to reach home. I was returning home after 1st semester and it had been tough…to stay away from the love and importance one got at home; and in completely alien and sometimes hostile conditions… to survive on mess’ food which even a beggar would refuse to eat…to bear the humiliation and severe mental trauma one faced during ragging…and to live in an horror and trepidation where one does not know when one may incur a backlog. But now everything was immaterial, inconsequential…I was going home…I was going to my family…

The platform was completely crowded and the people present seemed to be more or less happy. I wondered if there would be anyone happier than me out there, anyone more satisfied with life at present than I was.

The train arrived and I settled myself on my designated upper berth. I was not hungry at all; the euphoria of going home had quietened my stomach. I tried to sleep but my thoughts went back to my home again…what I would do when I reach there…I would meet my friends…I would boast about my college and the excellent facilities it provided…about my hostel life…about the fictitious girl in my life…about the new feats I had achieved…about the ragging I had bravely encountered here, yes…they would be spellbound, my friends at the village. I would sleep properly, I decided. The bed I shared with my dad back home was so comfortable…and…and I would eat well, whatever I was given at home. I had realized completely now that nothing in the world tasted as good as food prepared at home. The rice and dal tasted so delicious at home that you wouldn’t need anything else…and the chicken curry that my dad cooked on Sundays…..

I tried to sleep now, I would be much closer to home by morning.
Morning gave way to afternoon and when we reached Allahabad at 2 p.m, I was feeling quite at home. My heart beat faster as I saw the familiar sights of the paddy fields, sugarcane plantations and the small villages passing rapidly by.

Night fell; bringing with the assurance that home was at arm’s length now. Occasionally as the passengers opened their tiffin boxes to eat their dinners, the smell invigorated my hunger and watered my mouth to such an extent that I had to repeatedly convince myself that I would be home soon and would get to devour as much of food as I wanted.

I reached my intermediate station Chhapra at 12 o’clock and was just in time for the last government bus to Gopalganj. In the jerking motions of the rickety bus, I thought about my mother…had she missed me…yes, she would definitely had…a mother always misses her son…I wondered whether there has been any change in me…and whether my dad would be able to detect any…

I awoke as the bus reached Gopalganj. Alighting from the bus in the bluish grey light of the dawn, I saw my dad standing at the far end of the depot. How he might have lived…alone…all these days…never mind; now that I am here, we will bring the old days back…even if for a month only…cooking, cleaning, roaming and all the things that two old friends, two roommates do…
Hiding his tears, as always, he grabbed a bag from me, held my hand and said “let’s go home”…