I have been staying away from home for the past six years so to say. My visits back home have only been on vacations during my college days and the few times that I have managed to go back ever since I joined the present company I am working for. I have come a long way, I guess. But, I am sure this is just the beginning.
Things have been happening at a rapid pace in the past few years or so and life has gone through some major changes. By changes I mean, I have completely changed my line of work after being offered to work for a world class company, I have left home soil without much preparation, little thought and greatly on instinct, I am already engaged ( to an angel ), to be married soon, and God knows what might follow next. Does being the son of a combat pilot, play a role in fate acting with afterburners on? I dunno. Or being the son of a Physics lecturer, help me accelerate through the continuum of teenage days, college life, getting a job and getting married. I am clueless. :-)
I stayed with my parents till the age of seventeen, quite like the majority of people in India, before they head for their college studies and begin to stand on their own feet. I thought I had been doing the same, but the force with what all has happened in the past, I suddenly feel myself getting drifted far from where I had thought I had a strong foothold. It’s a funny feeling and I have no idea know as to what I am trying to convey here, but this is what independence must feel like. Suddenly, I have control over things. Suddenly I am being held responsible for my actions. Suddenly, I have to take decisions which mean a lot, which otherwise, in the past I would let my pilot-lecturer duo handle.
For all those who know me are aware that I love driving.I remember the time when I would sit in the car and beg mom to let me drive citing reasons that I am just two years away from being eligible to do so and she would say, Son,(followed by some nickname she would devise on the spot) be patient and trust me, within no time, you will be driving us around. That seems like yesterday. Never in my wildest of dreams had I imagined that I would be cooking food for myself. I am ready to help out my mom in the kitchen, if she lets me, or help my wife-to-be cut a few vegetables and help clean the utensils. But cook all for myself; How in God’s name, have I ended up doing this? I had wished studying abroad, but never thoroughly contemplated as to how to go about it and now I find myself away from home for at least what looks like ten years. In a couple of months’ time, I have to look for a house and probably not be cooking alone. At this rate, before I know it, I’d be responsible for a few more lives and I will be where my parents are now. Scary, I guess.
Well, I guess I am not the only one because when I look around, I find seven more heads bobbing in the deep end with me.
