HOME SWEET HOME..

Its hard to be back (to reality?). Really hard. They say that you don't know what you have been missing until it comes. It was exactly the same in my case..although the Original Chicken sandwich and Root Beer at Burger King or the Chicken Pita and a small drink..its always small :) , at Z's don't sound bad, its when i got garam rotis for lunch with two types of well cooked sabzis, proper gujju dal, chutneys and papad, all trademarked "with love from mom", that I realized what I had been missing for the past 2 1/2 years...and then i felt miserable. Terribly bad. And it was not about the food. It was like the moment of truth when you cannot stop your mind from racing through all the 'symbolic' bad days that you had and how difficult it was to face them alone. And how much have you missed and how much have you been missed. And how YOU have changed in this time...and how it will never be the same again...

Albeit, the misery was subdued to a great extent by the immense joy I felt upon actually 'being at home'. I used to talk long distance with my family and close friends every week for the last two and a half years, but it was far more pleasing to just see them in front of me and be in their close vicinity. And even more satisfying was the realization that they were more happy to see me than I was on meeting them. Happiness is a 'state of the mind' I had heard.... I'd rather call it the Indian 'State of mine'...

They say to acheive something you have to sacrifice. I now wonder where to draw the line between those sacrifices and the emblematic 'acheivements'. Without doubt, beginning today, I have decided not to sacrifice more than a couple of years for these deceptive American acheivements...