Away from Home

Life is a long journey it moves, turns, curves, transpires, teaches, surprises, awakes………………….. and takes you to a destination called goal. It will delight you on reaching; it will give you immense satisfaction and make you feel complete.
I remember so clearly one such turn which made me embark on a journey to move away from home.
I was just 23 years when I was told by the company I was working that I will have to move to Jaipur in Rajasthan. I never knew Hindi then. Low and behold my imagination was gone far to see myself riding a camel in the midst of stormy sand dunes and oasis’s.

I thought it was like any other move. Little did I realize till the day I was to leave, that it will be very different from home. All those years in Madras at home in the shadow of my parents and soaked in comfort it never dawned in me till I missed the shade that life taught me, life is never a bed of roses.

I had packed all the stuff I wanted and since it was winter (never seen or felt what WINTER was like till then) was loaded with all the woolen outfits needed for the weather there. Also I never forgot the last gift I got from a well wisher of mine which said “what lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us”.

There were a whole lot of goodies which was packed by my mother. My father had got me a watch as a gift and my brother was by my side to take all instructions of taking care of my parents and home in my absence. Though I may have been of little help in taking care of things at home, the feeling that during my absence how will they manage was rising in me. May be that’s what is affection propping in one without realizing what it is.

I could sense my mother feeling a bit low and my father wasn’t in his usual humorous self. The clock ticked and the car to the station arrived and I bowed to my favorite god with the elephant face and paid my obeisances to my parents and with something choking at my throat, put up a broad smile to camouflage what I really felt inside and I waved off to them with just my brother to the station.

The train arrived and we loaded all the baggages of mine and I wished him the best in his studies and to be a dutiful son to care in my absence. The train whistled and gently moved and gained momentum to leave my favorite city. I was drowned in thoughts of leaving behind my folks, brother, friends, relatives with thoughts of how life would be away from home and all what I enjoyed would no more be the same and will have to live on my OWN.

Surely I had a flair for meeting people, to see new places, taste a variety of food and the zeal in me to succeed in whatever I do. By the time I had a journey down memory lane of all till this journey, I arrived in Delhi and changed train for my onward journey to Jaipur.

It was 5am and the train arrived at the Pink City, I alighted and could feel my teeth chattering without any control and hurried to wear my jacket to warm myself. That was me in the land of the MAHARAJAS for the first time.