Every time I am booking tickets for home, I count the days and think of all the things I will eat there. With every passing year, as the world seems more and more like an amusement park, very rightly home has become its food court… where one halts briefly, catches one’s breath and then gets ready for the bumpy rides again. So here are the reasons why you should head back home, especially for festivals. ‘Coz travel takes you everywhere, love takes you home.

Those unpacking sessions

You see the disheveled layers of clothes in your old wardrobe. You travel back in time, unfolding a memory here and a moment there, picking them up and pigeon holing them. Deep down the recesses of the wardrobe, you discover an unused dress. Neatly folded, creases, all intact. You have forgotten that you bought this dress. Your face will inevitably break into a smile, like you rediscover a part of yourself which you thought had ceased to exist. You pull it out and put it back to where it rightfully belongs. Without realising it, you are sorting yourself out. Bringing an order into a randomness that had taken over you.

Those timeless smells

Smells reset clocks. Clocks that have swung wildly during the last few years, gently prodding you to the present. Go home so that you can be welcomed by those familiar smells in the kitchen, whiff of mom’s home cooked food, making their way right up to the door, where you stand, waiting to enter home, after those many years outside your haven.

Those familiar corners

Go home to those unused bends near your stairway, that little nook next to your bookshelf, a crack on the wall at the edge of your terrace. Home is where some of the long-forgotten corners haven’t forgotten you.

Undoing the regimented schedules

Part of my homecoming has always been about undoing those harrowing schedules. The morning alarm, the feel of the sad formal white shirt, the high heels and the maddening traffic snarls.

Those family conversations

Go home to watch your favourite television shows together. To feel that familiar smell in the air, of a family coming together after many days. Warm, soft and buttery, like the aroma of freshly baked muffins. Dad discussing about your last trip, mom like always complaining about how you need to eat more vegetables and sister only being interested in the new man in your life. Go home to a room full of giggles and conversations.

Megha Paul

Megha is a hoarder of books and indie magazines. She is either on a trip or planning one. And in between, she becomes a storyteller and writes travel stories, too. You will find her exploring the city for new coffee shops. She prides herself with awesome taste in music and dreams everyday of receiving her Hogwarts letter.