Homecoming

By Oishi Pattanayak

Dear old friend,

You see, I've never lived in a typical home―like the ones they have with families. But I know, the orphanage lacked something for which I never felt the homely warmth in there, which Chinni later told me she found in her adoptive parents' house. I was always wrong―I thought home meant a house with a family, with an addition of one or two fluffy and obedient pets perhaps, in a well equipped apartment...

...Our cricket matches with cheap plastic balls and distorted bats ended with us melting down in sweat, crawling towards our rooms like wounded animals, and desiring to have c-o-o-old drinks! Orphanages don't provide kids with what their hearts desire; rather with what they just basically need to sustain life. Then, you would come with paper cups of cold water which you made in your own fridge of chopped wood and salt, with that sweet smile and the forever-known call, "Chhote bachche, paani pee lo!". We knew you'd come to comfort us. Our tiny heads popped up from inside of the thin doors once this voice was heard. We knew, even if the whole world rusted down, we would still have you...

...The giant clock beside the stairs went on ticking, and just like a lot others, my time was about to be over in the orphanage. Kids can't be aided there forever. I was still desiring to have a home. But, people like me, who are marked 'serious and sensitive', harbor an unshakable concept that foster parents can't love you enough. I believed I'd never find a real home. Couples came, wanted to adopt me, and I suddenly acted in weird ways, threatening them enough to bid an instantaneous bye-bye. Yet I desired for a home. Such a paradox of wishes I had! But...well, something pulled me back to that orphanage, the place which I apparently hated. I didn't know what it exactly was that pulled me back, but I was sure it was something more than just my belief in the inadequacy of foster care―it was something I was yet to discover...

...You always insisted that I talk more. You said, silence kills a person from the inside, gradually, like cancer. Your mother had died of cancer. You feared the type of darkness, the type of death that slowly encroaches on your entire entity―quite like silence. You asked me why I acted weird when people interested in adopting me came; but I never said anything more than, "Aise hi, yeh jagah chhorne ka mann nahi karta"...

...Time drew nearer. My friends were all leaving with their new parents. The desire for a home suddenly faded away from my psyche. Maybe I was growing old enough to realise the fragility of possession. I was even ready to give my favorite torn plush monkey to other children. I was growing up, but the desire for a real home began to stop growing. All of a sudden, I woke up one day and it was no more there!

There were still some things that I was not ready to let go of―my everyday portions of the food you cooked for us, the time you spent everyday with me only, your palms on my cheeks, your philosophical life stories, the loose end of your saree which smelt of the kitchen and the garden and everything that you were directly attached to...

...I was now out of age to stay there. I cried like a baby! "I won't leave Rasoin-baa! I want to stay with her...Please don't throw me out!" They didn't listen. They knew that their old cook was close to the children, but so much? Your job further was hanging in the air. As I was leaving, I turned back numerous times to look at your eyes, filled with tears, and before I took the turn of the road and went out of sight, you shouted, "Main rahungi, bachcha, ghar rahega-a-a"...Ghar! Home!

Thirty years, and you're now a weak lanky grandma. Me? I never found a real home out there. Sitting inside the camps on high mountains, I dreamt of your face, your dishes, your saree...your love! Coming back to my residence, I wanted to run back to you. Sitting on the same chair of my office, I died to hear your voice...Thirty years, and I never managed to find you. Thanks to our old Chinni, she is my colleague now; she helped me find you out last month, in an ashram at an insignificant village. The orphanage threw you out, too...

...You are so old now, Rasoin-baa! They say your memory isn't strong anymore. So, now more than ever the chances of you remembering me have pedaled downhill. Still, I went closer to you, told you who I was...Your eyes shone, and your smile was visible through the oxygen mask as you saw my face leaning on yours. You remembered me! Thirty years since our lives took different paths and we have grown so much! A fragment of you grew up with me, in my memories, my dreams, my desires of your presence...

Like the silent observer I always was, I stared at your eyes, and I was back home!

-Yours forever,

Achchha Bachcha

By Oishi Pattanayak