The Way Home

This is a story I wrote for Englilsh, for our short story assignment. I don't really like it, because I didn't really know where to go with it, but there are parts of it that I do like, mostly the parts that aren't really to do with the plot. Even though there isn't really a plot. I don't really like the topic I chose either, because I think it's been kind of exhausted, but I couldn't come up with anything, so whatever. Anyways, read and enjoy (and comment)!

The Way Home

There are many ways to think of the way home. There is the bus ride towards your abode during which you can take notice of the arpeggios of your iTunes library, or the separated, filtered rays of the sunlight of Seattle. There is perhaps a mile long walk towards your neighborhood, which you travel daily without fail to step on each crack in the sidewalk and appreciate the leaves from trees you do not know the name of, or wishing for the comfort of a vehicle when the weather turns against you and there is snow melting through your canvas shoes. There is the travel of an plane that returns you to the country from whence you came, and in return for a small fortune you can enjoy the same B-rated movie as many times as the 18-hour journey allows you to. And perhaps when you reach your destination you can enjoy forcing your body to conform to the opposite of what it has been doing, eating and sleeping 12 hours in advance.

This is not the story of a bus ride, nor does it tell of me walking the mile towards my house. This story involves an 18-hour plane ride, but it is not the story of the plane. It is not the story told by the B-movies that I have seen 6 times in a row. This is the story of a homecoming, of the realization of a homeland, and of a culture that seeped its way into a body like the wet seeps into canvas shoes. There is some question as to what is a culture, so perhaps I should define what I mean. For me, my culture is defined by tradition, ritual, religion, family, country, and everything else that is a part of where you come from. In a melting pot country as America, culture is perhaps lost in the larger scheme of things, or maybe molded into a larger culture that has many smaller parts of culture from the many countries of contribution.

On a plane ride towards a country you have heard stories of, but never seen, the mind cannot help but jump to conclusions. I first saw in my mind the India of Bollywood films, with mansions the size of palaces and people in rich, brightly colored clothing dancing in the street. Then, I saw the India of foreign portrayal, of children with swollen stomachs begging for paise, and simply more people than the country could hold. In between showings of Hidalgo, I imagined myself being confronted by my large extended family at the Bangalore airport, all waving madly and giving me the famous sideways Indian head nod that makes it impossible for the inexperienced individual to distinguish yes and no. I could see myself not understanding the rapid language that I had not heard around me since I was four or five. To put it simply, the concept of India was large, foreign, and frightening, with all the pull of a magnet drawn to its opposite charge.

Walking through the streets of the country I had never seen, which was one and the same as the country that had given me my life, I found what a homeland meant. It meant not being different from those around you, not being a foreigner or an immigrant, not looking like you don’t belong. I also found what my homeland was. It was not the India of Bollywood movies, nor was it the India of Slumdog Millionaire, it was India as I chose to see it, and that made all the difference. I had created myself a country in my mind, and now the country was responsible for breaking those barriers that had been formed between us.

Regardless of the fact that I didn’t know what to expect, the minute I stepped off of the plane that had been my home for two days, I felt a warmth inside of me, a knowing feeling that said this is it. There is a time when everyone recognizes themselves, and for me, it was when I saw 13 members of my extended family grinning madly at me from beyond the security checkpoint. It was the moment that I knew that there was no hiding place from a country that had been tattooed into the insides of my body, that exudes from my very being as a scent, a feel, a look. It was a realization that there really was no barriers between me and my homeland, only illusions that had been created by expectations and fears.

Once safely past the mob of potential taxi drivers and the drive home at breakneck speed amidst parking-lot-traffic, there was finally enough time to contemplate this country that had captured my heart, and yet I felt so strange in. There was a mood of casual disregard that was present in the faces and the actions of every native of India, the open friendliness and innocence that I could see everywhere I turned touched my heart, and gave me the feeling of pride I needed. It was a prize that had been given to me by my country. The generosity and welcome that I found in the Indian people made me know them, made them my countrymen, and gave me the knowledge that I was where I belonged.

The conflict that I had known all my life was resolved, the world righted itself to a position in which I could see how it was possible to belong to two different places. One was a house, and the other was home. One was the product of a bus ride or walk towards a neighborhood in which I reside, the other was a country with a pull so powerful that it brought me halfway across the world but made me feel at home. A culture that had wound its way around me and felt like an embrace, not a restriction, was now simply a part of my being, and the ties that bound me to my country were not to be severed. I had found the way home.