Home sweet home

Everyone has one place in the world that they feel most relaxed, comfortable and peaceful at...at peace with themselves and the rest of the world. Most of us call it 'Home'.

It's the place you associate childhood memories with, a place that comes to your mind when you think of your childhood, of all the games that you played, where you learnt to ride your bike and the place you made your first friends, little children your own age...a simpler time, a time with a few worries, the biggest being homework or the exam tomorrow.

You grow up a little, to become an adolescent and suddenly the same place you thought was the centre of the world seems so little. Parents seem to become more strict and intolerant of your 'natural' behavior, natural to you because of all those hormones kicking in, turning you into nothing but a pain in the backside. You want to break free like that song Queen wrote and explore the world. Suddenly, your world's a much larger place, a place with interesting people, limitless possibilities and most importantly, no one to answer to. Like they say, the world is your oyster...!!

You move out, see a lot of different places, meet a lot of interesting people, do a lot of interesting and weird and not-so-nice things, all along the way thinking that this was all you ever wanted. Freedom. To think, do and act as you thought right.

You mature, eventually, and one day look back at everything you've done. Suddenly, most of it seems so little and of such little consequence. You yearn for a simpler time, a time when everything was exactly what it looked like. When just sitting around with your parents and siblings and a few close friends and watching cricket, or sharing a meal, or sipping endless cups of chai was the high point of a day.

You yearn for all that and realise you wanna be home. After you've done it all - gotten drunk, had wild parties, made interesting friends, had sex, gotten hurt, hurt other people, earned some money, lived on your own - all you wanna do is go back to the place where no one really cares how dumb or stupid or pathetic you were while you were away. They're just glad you're home.