Travelogue

Beta man laga k panda…Ache se rehna….

This sentence echoed a hundred times as I was leaving my nest nit with emotions, feelings, sacrifices and childhood tales. I was drifting from the place I had been belonging for the last seventeen years; it was time now to step over the Horizon ditching my adolescence. My family-my dad, my mum and my little sis naina steeped inside the car, as my kith and kin bid us goodbye. It was hard to believe that I actually was going away from all the earlier love, from all these people…..I thought for a second

“Would it be possible for me?”…

 I was searching for the answer in the mystic tunnels of my mind, when the driver started, and the distance me and my home started widening. A brief turn and my place was out of my sight, I felt a twist in my intestines  as I witnessed my house disappearing from the rear mirror, .it was weird, I was happy, yet there was something empty, something hollow in my heart.

The journey started with my mother’s daily soap telecast about all sort of instruction –

Do bath daily,Do keep your nails Clean, Do pray….

Amidst these instructions my mind gloated elsewhere among the mystic tunnels of my cerebrum, and wondered what my mother considered me-a five year old nursery kid, or rather would I be even getting any of these instructions from her when I would get in to college?

I came back from my secret world and realized that my dad had taken over from my mum. He had started off...

Pay attention in your studies...don’t get carried away, don’t roam much!!

I turned back aghast as I felt that my father’s tone had softened a bit, as in he was about to cry, thinking back now I question myself – “was it my imagination?” Or my 1.3 kg brain was thinking just too fast…

As the car halted at Moradabad so that we could have dinner, we stepped outside at the Punjabi dhaba. While ordering the food ”daal makhni,Shahi panner,Malai kofta….” I imagined that wasn’t I going to miss my mother’s home made delicacies too!! As we stepped back inside the car my little family slowly slept away, as I saw the three of them sleeping together cozily, my heart started pumping a bit fast, and my stomach gave a lurch. I couldn’t understand why?

Suddenly it struck me, I was going to miss these people, in all the fever and fret I had forgotten about these three people. I turned back, took a deep sigh, closed my eyes and puzzles started building up in my mind.

I opened my eyes out of my haziness when it was about morning, I turned back, everyone was as alert as possible, I realized that it was just half an hour to my college. My heart started throbbing like a tuning fork hit very hard. There were colleges passing by my side , I looked at my parents, I was happy, I was going to see my college, my new place, but my parents face were struck, they were in the mid of an unsuccessful attempt of hiding their emotions, I couldn’t understand why!!

I reached my college and was on cloud nine, doing all the formalities, finally I was there. It was a new beginning!!As we finished up, my dad took out all the luggage from the car , kept at my side, and started giving the adieu speech. When I realized the loophole in the whirlpool of emotions-my family was not going to stay with me. They had to go back 238 km away from me. It was terrible! I touched my parent’s feet(a notion which I don’t believe but follow to make my parents believe that I am a sanskari kid), they started sobbing, and they sped away. I was there with my little heart alone in this new world, my eyes full of tears, at the entrance of my new home-my hostel.

The earlier Nerds had proved themselves yet again-

Although the distance of my heart from my parents was yet too large, yet the DISPLACEMENT was NILL!