Haroon Bijli

The bags are packed and have been neatly placed near the front door. Your mother, grandmom and sister are in the verandah, waiting to say their goodbyes to you. Your dad has gone to fetch the taxi.

You have a few minutes to spare. You linger on in your room, savoring the last few moments at home. Lying on the bed. Breathing in the smells. Turning your head a little, to smell the tears that dropped to your pillows many years ago, when an adolescent crush broke your heart. Beneath which you had buried your head to block out your mother’s rebuke, a just punishment for a little lie you told. And where you found one of those nice little plastic animals which came with Binaca toothpaste, which you thought that the tooth fairy had magically put there.

You turn again and look up at the plastic fluorescent stars that your brother put up on the ceiling for you. So that your night could be better than his. Despite having to let go of his room for you. You take in the sights. The remnants of the Michael Jackson poster, whose glue was too strong for the whitewash. Your sister’s class I portrait of you. Frayed, but still hanging on, with a will as resolute as hers.

Your glance shifts to the clock, yellowed, but still faithful. Good. It’s not time just yet.

Outside the window, the guava tree rustles in the breeze. You have to go there one more time.

You touch everything as you go out. The thick, curved Bakelite switches, faded with years of touching and cleaning. The head of the bed, its corners worn out. Your fingers look for the tiny tooth marks, the remnants of the strong-tooth contest with your siblings. You touch the doorknobs. Loosened from the worn out screws, but can still go another ten years. The sides of the door which must have been touched by human hands a hundred times a day. The curtain fluttering and adjusting to your movement, giving you away with just a touch of reluctance, and a cute twing of the old wire-springs.

You sneak out through the backdoor, across the dining hall, taking a final look at a familiar place. The old meatsafe, the new porcelain set you gifted your mother a few days ago, and the dining table and chairs which were your parents’ wedding present. You take in the smells of the kitchen, reminding you of school day mornings. And of food which has been cooked and packed recently for you, just like those pleasant days.

You are in the kitchen courtyard. Your bare feet touch the “cricket pitch” where you imagined you were Kapil Dev. Just four feet away, the bowling crease where your brother pretended he was Imran Khan. And you can’t help but pat the umpire’s mound, where the little umpire stood. It doesn’t matter if it was used to wash clothes once.

There is the guava tree. Rustling, beckoning, begging you to climb it. Like you did when you were fifteen, so you could get a better look at your good-looking schoolmate next door. But not today. You are content with touching it, even kissing the low-hanging leaves as they let you pass through. There are no red ants to scare you today.

You take one last look at the house that was your home, where you lived the best years of your life. You know it will never be the same again. You long to stay there, safe in its security, content in its warmth. You find yourself yearning for a time which has passed and which will never come back again.

But you know you have to go. You breathe in the air, and touch the well-worn doorknob one last time. A feeling comes over you now, a warm feeling that comes with the knowledge that the doors of this house will always be open to you. You feel secure now.

It is as if everything in the house was telling you that all the time. You will go very far, but never so far that you cannot come back to the place where you belong. Because you carry the place in your heart, always.