HOME SWEET HOME…

Am back
After six take-offs
After seven touchdowns,
After literally living in a coach,
With three dozen strangers,
With a heart full of memories,
Some good, some bad and some,
'Abso-blooming-lutely' ugly!

Am back
With baggage filled with knickknacks,
And loads and loads of dirty clothes,
With a body and mind
Frantically trying to adjust to
Vagaries of time zones and cultures,
With fingers itching to record all,
That the mind has stored …
In its random memory!

Ten days
Ten times twenty four hours,
Of check-ins, check outs, check posts,
Flight crew, announcements,
Immigration, filling forms, scanners,
Trolleys, officials, green channels,
Ahlans, dankens, bon jours, mercis,
Grazies, ciaos and arrivedercis…
And most amazingly,
Smiles- the proxy interpreters!

A Jigsaw
Of thousand and some pieces
That lay scattered in my heart,
Of people, places, memories,
Of attitudes, alien habits,
Of curios, and the curious,
Of fear and anxiety,
Of joy when dreams come true,
And the keystone that held it all together,
The longing for a land familiar and…
Of unconditional safety!

Oh… UAE!
Try as I might, I cannot but exult
That I have returned home safe and sound!
I never thought, as an expatriate,
I’d say so openly…so gratefully,
But, as the two wheels touched your soil,
Loyalty to my homeland notwithstanding,
My heart murmured…in all sincerity,
Home…Sweet…Home!