Someone Take Me Home

By Tuhina Neogi

Writing Contest – Post 1

Author – Tuhina Neogi

TITLE: SOMEONE TAKE ME HOME

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave but not our hearts.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

22nd November 2016 – I vividly remember this date because it’s the day I left my home to build my own. It’s the day I got married. Having your own home and family with your distinctive soul-print is a sensational feeling, but as the years passed by that sensation was replaced with realization, a realization about the true meaning of home.

I should admit that not everyone is lucky enough to be blessed with the bliss of home. But the blessed ones will know its real essence. Home is a paradox, you know! There’s a stage in life when you’re desperate to get out of there and experience things on your own. But eventually, there comes a time in life when you’re more desperate to go back there.

Have you ever wondered why? What is there so special, so unique about home? Why is it so important? Is it because of all your childhood memories or is it because it’s an inevitable part of your history? Is it because that’s the place where you have people who share genetic similarities with you?

For me, it’s none of the above because home is not merely a collection of memories or a place of childhood history. And now it’s time to share real-life instances. It’s 2023 and almost six and a half years since I’ve been married. But every morning, I hear my Dad’s deep, calm voice waking me up, informing that tea’s ready.

I enter the kitchen to prepare breakfast and I can immediately hear Maa yelling at me for not getting done with my breakfast and almost instantly, I hear my sister defending me saying that she engaged me with some work.

In the last six years, not a single day has passed by without missing my family, my home. Most people shudder at the mention of 2020’s pandemic but I don’t and I feel guilty for that. It’s because that was the time when I got to stay with them for three months.

It’s not that I am unhappy or dissatisfied at my current place. I am growing on my own, doing things I haven’t done before, managing chores, and taking care of stuff and work. I have people to call my own, people to celebrate and talk to, and yet I don’t, or rather can’t call it home. Why? And this is where I discover the true meaning of home.

I can’t call it home because it doesn’t feel like home. This place might have everything but it severely lacks the emotions that go into making a home. It lacks the sincerity of love my mother has for me. It lacks the genuine concern of my father and the relentless support of my sister. I miss the spontaneous acceptance of home.

I miss the comfort of not having to explain myself or getting bothered about being misunderstood. Everywhere else and with everyone else, you are constantly measured up against judgements but at home, things become effortless because genuine feelings drive your actions for each other and most of the time, they are random acts of care and concern.

How I miss those random hugs from my sister and the surprise visits from my cousins! How I miss those sudden kisses by Maa and surprise gifts from Dad! Hell, I even miss those heated arguments with my parents, where we would get mad at each other and then patch up after a few hours.

That’s what home is, isn’t it? It’s not about the rooms, things, memories, or the genetic semblance. It’s those feelings, that effortless acceptance and decent disagreements. It’s all those feelings you have for each other, that assurance that at the end of the day, you have people who love you just the way you are.

They may get mad at you, yell at you, or become upset with you but those same people will pamper you, listen to you, and will do anything to see you smile. Yup! That’s exactly what home is – a place filled with the purest of emotions, a place that your feet may leave but your heart never does.

Looking back at my six years, I can’t help but be a little proud of myself, seeing how I’ve grown from inside out and handled some life-changing things on my own. But I also have days when my soul gets tired and those are the days when I yearn for home. Those are the days when I feel like hiding from the world and shutting down my inner chaos. Those are the days I pray that someone takes me home.

By Tuhina Neogi