Train to Memory Lane

I picked my luggage from the Baggage Claim and rushed my way through. The Indian airports have always been crowdy and warm, unlike other airports, perhaps because so many people come and go from the country. The last I remember, we had 1.3 Billion citizens; it certainly must have doubled by now. Other countries have a comparatively less crowd and I had gotten so used to them.

I came out all sweaty; the hot air brushing past my face. Even in the discomfort, I felt a sense of happiness. My mother was standing right there smiling, she'd aged so gracefully that you wouldn't believe if I told you she was in her fifties. I ran and hugged her tightly.

We spoke every week but it didn't compare to seeing her face to face. I called my Dad up and told him that I had reached and he was overjoyed, I despite the storms, I had a sweet little family that I wouldn't exchange for anybody. My little brother was all big now, looking all smart and of course, finally bearable. He hugged me the way he used to as a little boy, the kind that I always hated but somehow, it was what I needed right then. We mounted my luggage onto the trunk of her car and drove out of the airport.

It had been a while since I had seen tiny South Indian shops bearing people eating Dosas and Idlis or two friends having a good time with glasses of hot tea and biscuit. If there is one thing that India will never let go is that one glass of tea they sit and drink while discussing worldly affairs with their friends on shop benches- and a bowl of Maggi with their "macchans".

We didn't live where we used to, because buildings occupied the place that once was covered with greenery and half-empty streets with a bunch of boys playing cricket. I would walk past them hoping the ball wouldn't hit me or I wouldn't make a laughingstock of myself (also kind of hoping that one cute boy would notice me).

We reached the house an hour later. It was one beautiful apartment with the sea view. This particular area near the beach had tree canopies everywhere with wide roads, other apartments and bakeries. We unloaded, freshened up and I intended to relax. My mother and brother sat next to me and we were looking through the old pictures of ours on her laptop. There was one from years ago, my brother must've been three and I, nine, on the balcony of my old home. I was wearing my pink Pyjamas and him, his red t-shirt. There was a road that separated our house from the other side. The other side was an empty land that was eventually used to make an apartment. The house next to ours was also demolished a few years later to build a new apartment and I absolutely hated that.

I was overcome with a wave of nostalgia. I had to go there, I had to see what the streets are like now. I picked my keys and some money and caught a train to the station. I knew it was easier to book a car these days but I missed train rides, in India. I saw how the seas turned to big old buildings- the ones that have seen times change from the British ages to now, and little houses and roads in front of them with people cycling, peacefully. Station after station, trees after trees, I took it all in as Satie was playing in my ears.

I was in the ladies' compartment of the train and it was still how it used to be eleven, twelve years ago. Women in churidars, or pants and Kurtis, hair perfectly oiled and combed, some with jasmine flowers on them, either speaking to one another or looking at their phones, middle-aged aunties in their sarees talking loudly or fighting, blind men selling their music. It was sweaty and congested but that's how it is in India and I didn't mind.

I got off at my station and walked down the stairs. Ah, that same old station with that one Ganesha temple in the front, further down, outlets of McDonald's and Tibb's Frankie and on the other turn, a path to the railway playground, where boys would come to play cricket or football, uncles, and sometimes young men, would come to jog and mothers would gossip. I walk out of the station. They changed the look of the entrance gate of MCC, the one college my mom would tell me stories of. I was always jealous of mom because she had so many friends, so many stories to tell me about. Chatting in the gutter, a Thai boy that had a crush on her, her several overprotective guyfriends. She would tell me stories from her school days, the friends she was still friends with, whose kids I studied with and it was nice to hear. I always hoped I'd experience that someday.

The flyover was still majestic as ever. I walked on the sidewalk taking it all in. The church, that little Biriyani shop right next to it and the road to my area beside it. I walked in, it was 3 p.m. and the kids were walking home from school. I reached the most popular grocery store on my road when I was 7. It was still the same but other shops had opened and the streets weren't so empty anymore. I walked all the way to the school grounds. The very popular Corley ground. I learnt how to cycle there, I learnt how to ride a bike there and now I saw teenagers like me learning how to ride from their fathers.

I entered my street and the greenery was barely there. The canopy was long gone and I wasn't surprised but one would find barely anything that could remind her of the past. The house my grandparents used to live in was demolished to make an apartment when I was sixteen. I sort of missed it. In the early 2000s, on days when there would be a power cut, we'd spread mats, hand fans on my grandma's hands, Emergence lamps turned on, singing together. I walked a little further and saw my first house. My parents lived there until we bought ourselves a place two houses away. The old lady who was the owner wasn't here anymore, instead, a saw a couple sitting inside with their little kid playing with a ball.

I reached the house next to the flat that was across our balcony. I used to make a fuss about sleeping, and eating and my mom would show me that eerie green, house and say that there was a certain scary watchman would catch me and put me in the darkroom in their house and give me spicy chilly rice if I didn't eat/sleep. I chuckled thinking of it; God, I was so stupid. There used to be this annoying little pomeranian with a dark circle on its forehead that I thought was a bullet mark, as a kid because it didn't resemble a bindi, who would keep barking at the passersby and I always wanted to throw a rock at it but a big scary man would read his newspaper when that nuisance was out so I never did.

The bougainvillaea was gone too. It used to be one of my favourite flowers to pluck and don on me.

I reached my house, the olive green coloured, two-floored building. One of the very few buildings in the street that had any greens around them. I introduced myself and asked to take a look around. I saw the Mango tree cut down and my heart sank. It used to make the place so much more beautiful. I walked around and saw that the curry tree was intact, the guava tree replaced with a vegetable nursery. The home-grown guavas used to be one of my favourites. The Hibiscus plant, taken down due to ants, but the silver lining to the concrete jungles was that little pink rose bush they planted. Our pink rose bush withered away long ago and I missed it and it was as if life knew what exactly 27-year-old me needed.

And so I knew, I was home.