Bienvenue!

Its already summer! And hot. The kids are outdoors playing with water guns. And eating popsicles. A cool breeze just blew into the kitchen where I was making dinner, out of nowhere. I turned to look, see if any window or door was open, nothing. And again, as I was stirring the sauce, I felt it on my back and the heaviness lifted.

India was awesome, as usual. But unlike my previous visits when I landed and immediately felt the lift in my spirits, a sense of belonging, it took me three days to melt into the land. It wasn't until the morning after in Delhi that I could unwind enough to feel my heart open again.

The whole month prior to that had been extraordinarily stressful, and I did not realise how much tension I had in me till all of a sudden I just laughed. I was standing with my aunt on the terrace looking down at the street, watching people go for their morning walks, or to the vegetable wallah around the corner and watching them walk back again. The maid brought us tea, and the simple act of standing there with her, with a cup of tea in my hand and nothing to do but just watch the world go by, made me laugh. And India folded me into its lap again.

And I became a child again. 

The good thing about spending time in a place that is not your home town is the number of new people you meet and make friends with, people there have this quality of drawing you into their lives and hearts, and  though you maybe just a wayfarer, that affection is so constant, so inclusive.

I met this lovely girl, in her twenties, who had the kind of presence that charmed everyone. We spent three days together, mostly laughing for no apparent reason, laughing so much that our tummies hurt and it looked as though we were totally drunk. But even the high of alcohol would probably not have compared to the joy of that friendship.

I was only too eager to get back though, I missed the kids and him so. And waiting for my ride outside the desolate terminal, four-thirty in the morning, shivering a little in the cold, it felt so good to be back in a comfortable and familiar place, where I knew how to handle things. 

The kids were still sleeping when I got home, and I ran up the stairs as quietly as I could to stand looking at them, the youngest was sprawled all over the bed, as usual. My son woke up to quickly hug me and say 'yay! you're back' and promptly went back to sleep. I was restless, pacing the house waiting for them all to really wake up. Its sort of sad when all the eldest says is 'its good to have you back.' Now that she's taller than me. 

But it felt wonderful to be back home, find them all safe and healthy and none the worse for my absence. They didn't seem to have missed me all that much.