A daughter reveals why she has not been home for five years.
THE first time I left home, it was to go to another town not far away to
study. I was 16 then and had fiery ambition. I was convinced that going to this
other town to study would lead me somewhere in life.
But once there, I missed home and kept going back every now and then. It was
almost as if I was never away.
The all-too-familiar train would stop at the all-too-familiar station. I
would get off, take a rickshaw and be back at the same entrance surrounded by
big trees that leads to my father’s little bookstore.
On seeing me, father would get up from his chair with a surprised smile, hug
me and say, “You should have called. I would have come to pick you.” And I would
mumble the same thing about it not being necessary and that I was fine. Then we
would walk together through the dark corridor into the place my brother, my
parents and I called home.
Along the corridor father would call out to my mother – never by name, just
proclaiming aloud, “Look who’s here!”
Mother would usually be sitting at the dining table near the kitchen cutting
vegetables. She would lift up her head over her aluminium tub filled with
potatoes, spinach or okra and, with the knife still in her hand, exclaim: “Oh,
you are here. What do you want to eat?”
I wouldn’t run to hug her but would just fall onto one of the chairs or the
takhat (day bed) close by.
“Let’s have tea,” my father would say.
Within a few minutes, he would come out of the kitchen with a tray all set
neatly with teapot, milk, sugar, strainer, three cups and some cookies. He would
put the tray beside me, hand me my cup – no sugar – and then stand there
stirring three heaped spoonfuls of sugar in his cup, all the while saying how
silly it was to have tea with no sugar.
Then he would sit next to me and we’d start chatting. From politics to
religion to sports, we talked about everything under the sun. He always had some
interesting thing to tell me and listened to whatever I had to say. Soon he
would ask if I wanted more tea and go inside the kitchen again to make it.
By now mother would be busy in the kitchen. With pressure cooker whistling
and the smell of fresh dhal and vegetables getting into my nostrils, I would be
all too ready for lunch.
Many years passed by like this. I came back after completing my studies and
prepared to go even farther away to a big city that would, perhaps, take me
closer to being rich and successful some day.
My father dropped me at the station. He looked tired and old but seemed happy
for me. Perhaps he was happy that all our discussions over tea had at least made
me a dreamer, one who wanted to pursue a dream. As we waited for the train, we
talked politics, literature and philosophy. Then we said our goodbyes and went
back to our respective lives – he to his pretty much predictable one and me to
strange, unknown beginnings.
In this big city, I found work, married and had children. I kept going back
to my little town and the homecoming was never much different, although my
visits were seldom a surprise now. Father always insisted on picking us up at
the station as I would be there my boys, who were as excited to see him as he
was to see them.
It was strange how a 75-year-old and four-year-olds could share the same
excitement. But everything else was much the same – the entrance, the tea tray,
the chats ...
Time passed and my husband got another job and this time I moved, not to
another town or the big city, but another country.
Then came another homecoming. This time, it was different. We took urgent
flights and train rides and arrived in the middle of the night at the same
station in my hometown.
Only this time, my father was not there. He was in the ICU fighting to
breathe, and waiting for me to take that long journey home and surprise him
again, much the same way I had done for years. Only this time, there were
machines all around him, monitoring him for the much-dreaded fourth heart
attack.
He still smiled upon seeing me and asked if I could get him a cup of tea. I
couldn’t – he died the next morning.
Two days later, I left my small town again. It has been five years since and
I still don’t have the courage to go back. I cannot imagine entering the gate
and not seeing my father sitting on his chair. I can’t fathom how I would walk
through the dark corridor without him and lie down on the takhat, while nobody
makes tea for me.
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