THE HOMECOMING

The year has rolled around to its most enjoyable part and It’s time once again for Durga Puja and Dusshera, that magical, much looked forward to celebration of victory of Good over Evil, when family and friends gather around, to mark the commencement of the festive season in India.

The rains have finally stopped and the autumn air is suddenly cooler. The skies are a glorious deep blue again and the odd, stray build -up of a massive, puffy white cloud bank reaches high up into the heavens.  A time for the first, almost imperceptible winter chill settling in the air, towards the late evenings and early mornings, heralding the coming of winter. 

 It is that time of the year when thoughts turn homeward and each one of us thinks of ‘going home,’ to friends and family, to the places we grew up in, to our roots… 

Some years ago, for me that would have meant a trip back to a sprawling old house built in 1918 by my great grandfather, in a picturesque small town tucked away in the middle of nowhere in Eastern India.  Not anymore, but the memories remain. 

This time when I went to Kolkata, just prior to the commencement of Durga Puja, I felt so happy to see Dada- Boudi (my elder brother and sister- in- law) and Didi- Jamaibabu (my sister and brother- in- law) again, after a gap of two years. Meeting up with family (and close friends) always gives so much strength and positivity.

My mind casts back to Durga Puja holidays from the past in that little town of ours, when our grandparents were still alive and we lived in the old ancestral house so dear to all of us.

Every year, during the Puja vacation there would be a grand reunion of various uncles and aunts who would be ‘coming home’ from the big cities to meet their parents, Dadu-Dadi (grandparents) to us. 

And the big house would be teeming with assorted cousins, and uncles and aunts. 

I remember the impatient excitement of their impending arrival, the long line of cycle rickshaws, finally stopping outside our gate. In the open spaces of the small country town then, you could see them coming from a long way off. 

And the next few days were pure pleasure and fun for everyone. A wooden cot would turn into a Table Tennis Board after the bedding was removed. People gathered around and sang songs, chatted till the wee hours, went boating in the Ganges, or visited the must -see places in the vicinity, including the ruins of the once famous centre of learning of the ancient world, the Vikramshila Vishvavidyalay. (The Vikramshila University).

Evenings would sometimes become ghost story telling sessions, especially when the lights went off and a gust of wind blew out the flickering lamp- and no one got up to light it again.

Those idyllic times slowly died out with the demise of the joint family. An entire way of life that no longer exists, and it’s sad that our children will never get to experience its conservatism and traditional values. 

Personally, I always thought that the joint family was originally a great idea… if only it could also provide everyone the space they needed to be themselves.

There was so much support and empathy and warmth there in tough times… and in the good times as well. When you experience that now on brief visits back to your roots, it almost makes you weak, as the carefully crafted facade of tough independence falls away and you become once more who you once were, in the company of your closest family members.

And when it’s time to come away… it tugs at the heartstrings so deeply, a gut-wrenching feeling that takes days to get over. It almost makes you wish you hadn’t wallowed in that short- lived oasis of sweetness and caring, miles away from the normal shut-in routine of usual workaday life.

A life lived amongst strangers, even if they are colleagues and acquaintances whom you’ve worked with for years… People who will never really know you…or you them.

You have the new car, the luxurious new house, the golf and tennis at the club and the tall drinks afterwards, the parties and the new friends, a whole new life to live and yet, with all that, you still crave the old one suddenly at times.

 With a longing that’s almost physical…

Sometimes, when a deeply cherished experience that comforts and makes you feel warm and happy, lasts only for a brief, fleeting time and you are back, even before you have properly savoured it, to the professional isolation of the life that you have mentally steeled yourself to live in the new world, it seems almost logical to stay away and not grant yourself the luxury of that brief Interlude of sweetness and warmth. 

If only to spare yourself the suffering afterwards.

For most of us however, these interludes are still so very necessary, even if they can be ours to enjoy only for very brief, transient periods. And even if they only serve to make us yearn for something that we can no longer have, at least not for any extended period in our lives… the company of those related to you in flesh and blood and in the unforgettable memories of parents and childhood homes and shared growing up years. 

Which sometimes makes you wonder, can we not, all return to our roots for good at some point in our lives and enjoy once again, the luxury of the feeling called ‘home?’ Although for most of us, the actual place may have long ceased to exist by then. And it also makes you wonder whether this isolation and staying away from what is essentially a part of yourself at some deeper level, really worth it, or necessary, beyond a point? 

For sometimes, it can be such a joy to discover the unexpected caring and warmth of feeling for a sibling, even if it’s only a distant cousin whom you’ve only heard of till now…

But then, isn’t that also an extension of the Durga Puja Spirit… of Ma Durga visiting her mythical maternal home on Earth for a brief sojourn each year, before returning again to her Heavenly Abode? 

And so also for thousands of people living away from their Homes and ancestral lands, flocking on brief visits to the people and places that they have left behind, to partake of the festivities and the company of loved ones, before flying away once again to the faraway climes from whence they came. 

In a week of snatched togetherness that would have to make do for the rest of the year.

And perhaps the year after…

And then, like all good things, Durga Puja comes to an end, with the immersion of the Goddess on Vijaya Dashami, the last day of the festival and the brief interlude is over. And it’s time once again, to go back to the Business of Living.

The long farewells, the promises to meet again soon, the familiar lump in the throat as you touch your elders’ feet one last time as you take leave. With the cherished hope in your heart, that one day, you’ll be back – for good. 

But till then, there’ll always be “Promises to keep… and Miles to go before I sleep”