Home-sick?

She pressed the tissue into her eyes. The dampness dried leaving a slight red tint in her eyes’ white. Thank god that she doesn’t use any eye-makeup, or else it would have been a terrible mess. She tried to stare into the computer screen. Kishore kumar sang so nostalgically into her ears, and she wanted to cry again. Her heart yearned to go home, to be near the roots, from where she came. She didn’t want to go to that home, which was in her name. She wanted to be in that home, which once she felt like leaving for ever. Strange are the ways of destiny.

 

May be I am wrong. She thought. She felt guilty again. When so many people wish so hard to be in her position. To have a good job, to own a house. May be he was right. I shouldn’t think like this. How could she even think like that? This country gave her every kind of happiness that can be bought with money. She should be thankful.

 

It has been only 2 yrs, since she joined him, here. Even her body had adapted so well to this new place. It even forgot the place whose air she breathed for long 25 yrs. 25 yrs!! is that a small span of time? Last time, when she went to her home-land, her body revolted against the climate, there. When her mind was at complete peace at the welcoming scent of home, her skin developed sun burn rashes. Her nose started bleeding and soon developed bronchitis, cos of the dust and pollution, which didn’t matter for past 25 yrs! She developed asthma, cos of the cobweb remains inside her room. And to top it all, a small cockroach got inside her ear, making her run for hospital, at midnite. Even the water disturbed her stomach. Her body was screaming at her “I want you to go back…this atmosphere is killing me”. To whom should she listen? To her mind or to her body?

 

She felt anger at her own body, who forgot the past 25 yrs atmosphere and easily got comfortable with the 2 yr atmosphere. Who told it to, forget home? Didn’t it know so well that there were dust and pollution in her home. Didn’t it know about cockroaches and lizards? Didn’t it know about the water, there? Wasn’t it familiar with the cobwebs? After all she was born in the midst of all these!! No. now even her body forgot her roots.

Her mind and her body always fought with each other. She felt sometimes that it wasn’t her body at all. Why is it not listening to me, at all?

 

Again her thots wandered to home. Last time she cried all the way from home till she reached the transit country. Even in her younger days, she never yearned to live in any other country. She never fascinated it, when her colleagues and classmates awed at that possibility. Even when she got married, she never imagined this.

 

Once when an astrologer told her mom-in-law about her that she would never come back to home-land, she laughed at him and her. She told her that it would never happen and that she will always always come home to settle.

 

Every afternoon when that awaited phone call from home-land reaches her ears, her mind flies over there. Once she opened her mind to him. “I miss home” was all she could say. When she heard “I don’t miss home” in return she didn’t want to continue it. Why can’t I be like him, and love this new country close to the heart. Then she heard the consoling voice “If you want to go back and work there, u can.”.  No, but she didn’t want to leave him. She was torn, into two pieces, which would never fit to each other, like every other home-sick wife. But who told she was home-sick? She never knew the meaning of that word!

disclaimer: Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is intentional and NOT purely coincidental. cos I dont know how to write fiction.