Creating new excuses to go home
late and stay out late had been the most difficult task when I stayed in home,
with parents. Staying away from home means freedom, loads of space, and your
room becomes a any-time party zone for your friends and you, in home you are
put under the hammer even for tossing a wet towel on the chair after the bath, in
a bachelor room you are not answerable even for hundreds of cigarette packs
filled with ash and filters, unless one of your dad’s friend stays in the same
town and he is been instructed by your father to make some surprise visits to
your room. Regular night outs, new friends, meeting people from different
culture, learning to be independent, tolerating work, tolerating your roommate
who brings different girls every month to your place and requests you to stay
outdoor until they are done with the talking (as he suggests).
Being away from home teaches you a lot, helps you a lot to improve as a
person, it’s fun, it’s the life you have always been longing for, yet
sometimes, may be most of the times you feel a kind of vacuum in your heart, in
your mind, this emptiness has the ability to take away all your energy, you can
hardly do anything, this emptiness is created by your inner senses, which is
all the time striving for home, for
parents, for the people you have grown
up with, childhood friends, etc, etc. No attachment can be stronger than the
attachment you have built during childhood, no love can be as unconditional as
the love you have developed during your childhood, for instance you can give up
liking your favorite movie star or a sports star whom you have started liking
lately, but it’s almost impossible to give up liking whom you have been liking
right from your childhood. Things associated with childhood longs forever.
Ten
days is a very short period when you are with your loved ones or when you are
doing something you love, but the same 10 days turns out to be too long when
you are, nothing but only counting those 10 days to get over, when I say this I
remember how we felt a 40 minutes Games period to be very short and
the same 40 minutes Social Studies(civics) class to be very long, long like it started many years back and it may
get over a few years later. Ten days back my leave was sanctioned, I had been
counting days and now I am all set to go, my roommate had accompanied me to the
railway station, he felt I was not as happy as I had to be, and asked, “you
don’t seem to be happier, you are going home after a long gap, and you should
be happy for that, why is that so?”, “ The fact is that the trip will get over
very soon and again I have to return back, and the sadness of retuning back is
much stronger than the happiness of going home” I said. “You think a lot,
thinking a lot ruins the fun, empty your mind, empty your mind friend.” He
concluded, like a spiritual leader, he has been reading a lot of spiritual
stuffs lately. But, he was right too much thinking takes away a lot from you
unknowingly.
The
kind of welcome you get, when you go home for the first time after you have
become a working man is filled with lot of emotions, I could sense it in my
mother’s eyes, the way she was handling me was as if I had returned from a war,
in fact for a mother, when you are not in front of her eyes, it’s always like,
“my child has gone for a war and when will he/she return back?” kind of feeling.
My mother was arranging dish for the breakfast, meanwhile my father made
me sit with him give the updates regarding work and how I was taking care of my
health. My grandma was sitting nearby taking a close look at me, once you are
grown up, grandmas don’t ask you much they just look at you with amusement.
Soon after I was done with my breakfast I headed towards my grandpa’s
room, in fact after my grandpa passed away 4 years back it is referred as
grandma’s room and the room will be taken over by someone else in future, but for
me it was grandpa’s room then, grandpa’s room now and grandpa’s room forever. Some
things don’t change, it’s by default in your mind. The room was dark, it remains
dark all the time, my grandpa never kept the windows open, and even my grandma
followed the same. I could have put on the light but I didn’t, because I liked
the room being dark, my association with the room was something special, during
my childhood, once in a while I got to sleep in this room with my grandparents,
sleeping in between your grandparents is a great pleasure, the thing that I liked
the most about the room was the smell, the aroma. The aroma had developed over
the years, it was not ready-made, it just happened over the years, the aroma evolved
year by year, as per my study the aroma was created by the things that were kept
in the room, the room was big enough but it had become so congested that once
you entered the room either you have to climb the bed, or stand still or get
out of the room. I climbed the bed, because that was the plan, spending some
time in this room, alone, was a very important and planned part of my stay. I laid
on bed, closed my eyes, took some deep breaths, I could smell Borneol flakes (karpur),
I could sense sandalwood, I could sense fragrance of a unknown flower, I could
sense the unique smell of the new rupee notes and old notes, I could sense the
soothing smell of silver and gold, smell of new clothes, old clothes and many
more. The mixture of all the fragrances had created the particular aroma, which
was so special and unique, right from my childhood I enjoyed spending time in
this room, it kind of gave me a soothing feeling all the time I was in there,
and also the aroma made my mind slip into the memory lane, where the memories
with my grandpa was well preserved, and one particular fragrance reminded me of
the scent my grandpa used on his ironed clothes, I put on the light to check
whether the scent bottle was somewhere around, but it was not visible, but my
grandpa’s shirt which he wore the previous day of his death was hanging in a
corner around a hanger, I went close, I dipped my nose into the shirt and could
smell the fragrance of that scent, it was still there for my surprise, I was
very happy that it was still there, it showed my grandma’s love for her husband,
there was something in the pocket I took it out. I don’t know what it is
called, it’s a set of 2 small instruments, a ear cleaner and a kind of plucker.
My grandpa carried this with him all the time, I kept it for myself. During my
stay I made sure that I spent few minutes every day in that room.
The
trip was over, and I was back to work, and I had already started counting days
for my next long-leave, it’s a fact that Games period ends like a wink of an
eye and social studies (civics) period goes on, like for years, we have to live
with this fact, And something remains with me all the time like a booster, it’s
the aroma of my grandpa’s room, all I have to do is just close my eyes and let
myself feel it, “IT’S NOT THERE. BUT, IT’S THERE.”
This post is my official entry for Ambi Pur, Smelly Air to Smiley Air(www.facebook.com/AmbiPurIndia) Contest, in Association with indiblogger.in
