How could I ever forget that date?  Destiny engendered me to move to ‘the land of opportunity’ on 15th August 2014 right after hoisting the national flag!

I remember 14th August prodigiously well. The pleasing austerity of the wind, as it hollered across my face, ruffling my hair, the many piercing beautiful eyes with recalcitrant tears now, that last cup of morning chai, that evocative last hug with my best friend, that was so alluring that my hair stands up erect even now, our articulate reflection of globalization by taking my first and last selfie, devouring my last memories of having the most palatable food for 2 cents (10 rupees) and finally waving goodbye “happily” to my family when my heart was crippling inside. Many a times my mind wanders around during my ‘Americanised’ classes and I envisage a picture of my smiling best friend sitting next to me, winking and saying, “Dude! We are gonna rock this class”!

My mystical dreams make me alive to the ceaseless and boundary less depths of the human mind. One moment it is exploring the luscious beauty of what you desired. When you finally contrive the opportunity to get what you desired, you roam back to those dust slacked memories in the chaos of your brain and you thrum out the gleaming past you had before you got what you desired.

My first few days in the ‘land of opportunity’ were spent not digesting the fact that I was really over there; only when the sprinkle of rain christened the dew and I could not see my own tears in the petrifying rain did I realize what I was missing. Perhaps the only thing I wanted to do at that time was to go back those months, to zoom past all my memories, to decipher the bond that made me cling and experience zealous amount of joy, and make that bond a precious persona in my clamped mind and then live on that zealous experience for many years.

Sometimes I look back and finally discern what America is offering and feel that coming to the ‘land of opportunity’ a little earlier could have been better and far more reflective then what it is at present but then that heavenly magical power makes me turn around and catch the electrifying and indulgent dimpled glimpse of my best friend and I realize what I would have missed! Many a times my heart beats like a stopwatch and my face burns with a colour that infuses severe anxiety in my mind, my hands slump over my shoulders and it is only the piercing rain that hides my tears. My mother comes in my view quite sheepishly. Once reminiscence in having staggering ebony hair, she has strands of white cascading across her shoulder now. My mother is my source of inspiration. Her electrifying hug heals all my wounds and soothes my mind.

I don’t know how I remember all of my years in India. My mind makes this portentous and riveting turn and in a far place away from anyone I drift across, a year back to lots of memories, to the haunting smell of chai, the aroma of sublime Indian food garnished with pepper, cardamom, and the melancholy of the temple chime soothing out all of my worries just through a smiling face of the blue god who is the source behind all my material pleasure and the reason behind all material bliss. A sound of noisy shoes punctures my chaos mind, I snap open my eyes and whirl around searching for my best friend but it is just a new girl fiddling with her keys.

A bird, golden  and ebony speckled in her features, her freckling locks swaying at the first mention of wind clinches at the last memories of the safety in its mother’s womb, now stares out her nest and descries a saffron, white and green shimmering past and an unseen future awaiting her in the other side. That bird is definitely desi.