It is Onam.
I ought to be home.
I ought to be running into the embrace of my mother's warm gaze, long before her arms close around me. I ought to be hearing the comfort of my father's voice bubbling through the paan that he refuses to give up. I ought to be breathing in sunlight and salt filtered through petrichor and tea.
I ought to be home.
Home is a strange name to call a place I have barely lived in. My memories are cultured in the petridish of distance. My tongue clatters awkwardly foreign around the syllables and sounds of my land (though my 'L's always betray my origins). I am forever the outsider inside. Forever the traveller stopping by. Forever carrying 'home' in a backpack.
But it is my birthright.
No label, no paper, no misguided order can erase the roots that go deep into ourselves. My blood carries the sweetness of tender coconut water, my bones the stubbornness of teak, my flesh the pliancy of banana stem. When I land on that soil, the ground greets my feet like a mother kissing a newborn's feet, welcoming me home.
I have what so many of my countrymen are being denied. I have what so many need to prove to be able to touch. I have something that no one ought to be able to take away from you. I have it.
And I am not everyone
How can I go home, when so many cannot?
I ought to be home.
I ought to be running into the embrace of my mother's warm gaze, long before her arms close around me. I ought to be hearing the comfort of my father's voice bubbling through the paan that he refuses to give up. I ought to be breathing in sunlight and salt filtered through petrichor and tea.
I ought to be home.
Home is a strange name to call a place I have barely lived in. My memories are cultured in the petridish of distance. My tongue clatters awkwardly foreign around the syllables and sounds of my land (though my 'L's always betray my origins). I am forever the outsider inside. Forever the traveller stopping by. Forever carrying 'home' in a backpack.
But it is my birthright.
No label, no paper, no misguided order can erase the roots that go deep into ourselves. My blood carries the sweetness of tender coconut water, my bones the stubbornness of teak, my flesh the pliancy of banana stem. When I land on that soil, the ground greets my feet like a mother kissing a newborn's feet, welcoming me home.
I have what so many of my countrymen are being denied. I have what so many need to prove to be able to touch. I have something that no one ought to be able to take away from you. I have it.
And I am not everyone
How can I go home, when so many cannot?
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