It is my sixth day here, in my home town. What was meant to be a brief three day visit got extended to a week. Irritated, agitated I kept sulking because of the weather that slumped our well planned itinerary. Ideally I should have joined work yesterday but here I was whiling away time doing something I detest the most - shopping! But since that was the main reason for my visit to the home town, I somehow made peace with it. But I still hated how slowly time passed here.
Being a city girl, I was used to the fast paced life. With a blink of an eye the day got over. 24 hours seemed way too less for the Maximum City - Mumbai! Irritated with mosquitoes, rashes on the face, insects and the invertebrates crawling around the house I longed to go back to the comfort of my home. Small or big, it was home. But this was home too... While growing up we spent about three weeks a year here. It was the most amazing time for us as kids. To run around the fields without any inhibitions, pluck fresh fruits off the tree, see the cows graze, to soak in the culture and eerie feeling of knowing the ancestors were still lurking around in death, made the stay here fun and worthwhile 😊.
But here I was, an adult in her 20's, used to the comforts of home, fast paced life of the city and all the comforts it had to offer. I didn't see the belongingness that I felt like, before. I liked being occupied and wasting time here because of the torrential downpour made me irritated. So irritated that I forgot this is the place that traces back to my roots, to my origins... While I have memories of my maternal grandmother still fresh in my mind, there are some hazy memories of my maternal great grandmother showering us with immense love, and also highlighting how important our ancestral home was to us, should be to us. My grandmother made sure she passed on the same values to us, her grandkids when we were slightly older, more able to absorb what she had to pass down to us... This house and the traditions that came along with it. It was important that we, especially I as the daughter belonging to a matrilineal family setup understand the crux and nuances of the traditions. And I did, with as much pride and love as I could.
But then life caught up, education and work. Now as I stand and pray here for my family, my love and well being of all, I feel a wave of postitivity in me. Something that holds me here, binds me to the traditions that had been passed on to generations. The past that reminds me to be positive and be optimistic of the promising future.
