Home Sweet Home

I'm going home. After 3 months. This is the longest I have ever been away from them. I'm leaving in 2 days, but I already started packing last week. Collecting small gifts for mom and dad. Maybe they'll like this, or this, and this! Finally i end up with too many things. The excitement feels wonderful. I close my eyes and think of the whole feeling of home... the smell of it... the touch... Amma's pumpkin sambar, the aromas of semia payasam wafting in the air... dad's tinkling pooja bell, and karpooram aarti, the melodious devotional songs, his deep voice chanting the hymns, reverbrating through... I'll never forget the days when i was a child, and i would wake up listening to his voice chanting... and after a few months I knew verses of the hymns by heart without anyone teaching them to me. I miss that nod of approval when I would wear a bindi and bangles to surprise them... something so small could light up their day... and how amma would tell me to eat. Oh! that sweet persuasion. No one cares anymore if you eat or you don't. Only mom does. That affectionate look in her eyes and a large serving of food and no matter how much I eat, it's always less. I miss her soft hug. Silently rocking me... stroking my back... silently healing me. And dad would look over his papers with his glasses and smile at us silly women sharing an emotional moment, and go back to reading his papers. I miss those nights at home , and how dad would read to me. It would always be a spiritual book. We'd hold cups of hot milk and he would read, and i would listen... and think. I miss putting my leg over amma and sleeping close to her. Her soft arms and soft stomach. She once told me that it became so soft after she had a C section and I came out of her stomach. Amma's clinking bangles... I would know where she is just because of the sound of her bangles. Sometimes we'd go to a shop and I'd get lost, and then all i had to do was to close my eyes and listen carefully... and i'd hear her bangles and follow the sound and there she would be! Amma was always glowing. Always happy. Always as delightful as a child! There isn't a person in the world who can react to a surprise like my mom. I would get her something as small as ice cream, and she would be so thrilled... almost like i built her a gold castle. Her eyes would be shining, and she'd clap and say "Arrey!". At the end of the day its love that we live for... Mama i'm coming home!