Tug Of War

Robotic routines in the recent past left me so anguished that last night that I felt deflated. Outrageous. I hardly spared time to work out some math sheets with my daughter. Office, home and one child. These were the projects in my life. And then came this blog where I would crib about it all.



I wanted to open the floodgates of my mind's dam where numerous thoughts had been circling in orbits. The speed went directly proportional to the speed of our routine. The endless list of jobs. I wanted to fall flat with my laptop and write. Write write and write. The cherished dream of childhood. I cherish those evenings sitting in my home garden as I wrote my school times poems. The aroma of the agarbatthis my mother lit after evening prayers to god, still tickles my nostrils at the very thought. One small Red Diary of mine that holds a treasure of my bits of writings, poems and thoughts lie with me, slightly soiled with worn-out pages.



And after a few months of the "routines" in Doha, we can't wait to block our travel dates, pack and rush home. The hustle-bustle of preparations includes a few shopping hauls too. I behave like a child, waiting to go home after a boring day at school.

Home!! For me.

There is a paradox always when my daughter says shes so very excited to go to India. But for a holiday only and come back home! 

For her, Doha is a home.

It is so very natural. But my heart longs to go back home. Perhaps nothing much different than the busy bees that get busy collecting nectar to return home one day. 

Just before the travel day, my daughter starts exhibiting her enthusiasm in her craziest ways. She has just wriggled into the blanket like a mouse trying to pull out a piece of cheese stuck inside a hole. She shook her ass continuously and stuck it out of the blanket and kept whistling until I had to quieten her. Her excitement has no bounds. All her bags packed and announced to most important people in her life like her Ballet and Art teacher, her class teacher, her playmates, even the school bus driver.



We are no less. Pulled out Indian currency and admired all the five and ten-rupee notes that seemed so good. I smelt a note as slipped it into my bag and that reminded me how I used these notes as I took the autos of Bangalore in early 2001. Naa a holiday to India is not new. We go every year. Even at times for a day or two.

But I want more and more. And more.



After a break as we visit India, there is fun even in watching the street dogs bark, lizards patrolling the home walls, the beggars bugging you by pecking at your shoulder, the continuous nonstop honking on the roads as if there has been some kind of emergency.

Standing in the center of a crowd and stuffing "paani puri"  in my mouth while my relatives pull my legs over that too. And as a typical NRI coming from "foren" who visits India only to eat all the street food, go back in branded clothes exclaiming how much we miss India.



Well, as for my daughter she will clap and jump on seeing some stray puppies on the roads. She will roll and laugh when she sees people hanging out of the local city buses around Manipal/Mangalore. She will carefully watch the street vendors shouting their typical lines, selling tomatoes,  onions, or fresh flowers on Bangalore roads. And then imitate that in her games with friends back in Doha.



And then as we [me and my hubby] exclaim a sad ending to our holiday, for my little one, it is the other way. She is a "forener" in India waiting for her return one day to her home where she is brought up!

As for me, life in Doha is a tiger ride. Neither can I get off the ride, nor can I ride much longer in peace.



There goes the tug of war. Wonder till when!