No place Like home
Fish out of water...
It is amazing how home means different things to different people. And not just the physical space and how it looks, feels or smells… but the different responses it evokes in those who live in them and the different emotions associated with belonging to a physical space. To some home is a neat and clean, place where comfort and simplicity are the obvious themes and being at home is as much an important and crucial activity in their lives as ‘going out’ as this serves as a clean escape from the world outside. For others home is a storage vessel, a place to distribute their personal belongings in no particular order or manner, and use the space to accumulate their lifetime’s worth of personal effects with no actual attention paid to how the clutter is a reflection of their own dealings with life. For still others their homes are a reflection of themselves... and anyone who will know them will see how every wall, every drape, every useless vase…will be a small chunk of the inhabitant’s personality and that home is not just where the heart is, but the body and soul too…
Some come home and feel nothing… it’s just four walls and a few memories, nothing moves them! For others it’s a place where life happens, but you can participate in your pajamas or old track pants...where chipping walls and rickety tables, worn out carpets and broken lamp shades are part of creating the character of the home. And each and every item has a place in your memories…home means everything and nothing depending on who you are and why you are there… and also on who you come to share it with. And home is where you define yourself…and launch that into the world…
Kirtana was thinking this… as she sipped her cup of tea, still under the covers of her bed. Unwilling to embrace the day just yet… she loved that quilt she had over her, and her bed had been in her family for three generations. She had been thinking of her own home, and how she felt safe and free from judgment in here. No one could make her feel like she was not good enough in here. Here she ruled supreme. And then there was Maliha… a different home every 6 months. Shifting from place to place and with each place came the mixed bag of sentiments in each house… how did she keep at it? How could she uproot herself each time, or adjust to unfamiliar territory each time… that took either complete disregard for her surroundings or a detachment process that worked in seconds, she took the words ‘ out of sight out of mind..’ too seriously perhaps! But Mali was not that type. There was more there. Kit would investigate!
Kirtana was thinking of the mad guy she had met the day before, yes he had seemed interesting, that Manu! She refused to think about Karan. He had been a waste of time before, and this occasion had just served as a well timed reminder! Good riddance to bad rubbish she had thought last night as she took a cab home! She was embarrassed though...she had been all dressed up and had come on time, only to be stood up. So yes she was feeling sorry for herself!
Maliha entered her room, unannounced and sat herself on the bed… she too was sipping some sort of hot beverage, but it smelt different as Kit noted. She started…”let’s go to the airport…remember a friend I had told you about? Well he lands here today, and we just HAVE to go get him. He is so going to love meeting you!!...let’s go let’s go let’s go…” she repeated herself excitedly! “We can drive to the airport!”
In a record time of 20 minutes Mali and Kit got ready, and left the house, and took the long drive to the airport. The air was cool, and they put the windows down. With the wind in their hair they looked as though they might have been going on some sort of road trip… well maybe, considering how far the airport was.
An hour and half later, they were there!! Just in time. The flight Raghav was in had landed about half an hour ago, and soon he would be out. Kirtana said “you know we should have made some sort of sign with his name on it... He could spot us easily then..” she said.. finding her own suggestion silly! Mali spoke...” Ummm oh I don’t think I mentioned…. But Raghav’s blind Kit. He has been since he was four. Signs like that probably wouldn’t work, he’ll get some help getting out, and we’ll scream out to him nice and loudly so he ‘sees’ us...”. Kirtana gulped...She did not have anything against what she had just heard… but she had never actually met someone visually impaired before… she was nervous about how she would behave with him!!
Mali was about twenty steps ahead of her by now, shouting and waving to get the attention of a boy she had spotted… by the time Kit got there, they were locked in a big hug… they looked like siblings!
They got back to the car, after a round of slightly awkward yet warm introductions, and soon they were back on their way home…
Kirtana would find out… much like how she had been thinking earlier that day…Raghav had found comfort in his home, he had been able to find peace with his blindness in his home as a young boy, and had familiarized himself to the smells and sounds and feeling of his home and associated his memories of his childhood to that home in that way… but now he was struggling to make a life of his own…Finding it difficult to make new memories and new associations because as much as he was the life of any place, it was because he was overcompensating for feeling so lost, by being so seemingly happy. He needed to redefine what anchored him to his own life, and he needed to understand again what made him feel at home… in his own skin, in his own dark yet beautiful world... And he had come to the right place!
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