My pleasant ville

"So what did you do?", she asked between mouthfuls. I thought for a while and realized just as I told her that I didn't do anything - zilch. Nothing at all. "And then, what's this whole thing about celebrating your birthday with your parents?" Yeah - when you miss meetings, parties and travel six hours to go some place (and feel kicked about it), you are supposed to do something. Probably, even my mother understood it the same way when I told her I am coming home for my birthday. Saturday morning, when I landed home after the 22:55-to-chennai-B70-from-koyambedu-to-thirumulaivoil, and was half-dazedly staring at some half-naked actress on TV, my mom detailed the plans she had made for sunday. We will hire a car, go for a movie, then go to a restaurant and have dinner outside ... her voice trailed off when she realized I had dozed off midway.

I don't know what is it about going home - probably it's got to do with the fact that I have been spending 300+ days every year away from my parents for the last 7 years (like so many of us do) that I want to be with them at least on occasions like birthdays or new year's eve. Probably, going home is the most economical activity to do on one's birthday (an argument which pales considering I flew from france to chennai to be able to spend my birthday at home last year. My mom almost had a heart attack at such public display of affection!).

May be it's the charm associated with the idea of getting into a secluded spot beyond the reach of humanity. Oh trust me - my house is officially the last step in the threshold of humanity. I officially live in a world where streets have no name. No roads in the map lead to my house. Coming to my house is a roller coaster ride, the adventure quotient of which has been tripled ten times thanks to the latest "repair work" and the recent summer showers. So, entertaining visitors (that includes even the postman) is literally out of question. I haven't activated roaming in my mobile and phone lines in my house (of which very few have the number) are quite a mess. So, someone should really take an effort to reach any of us at home for whatever reasons.

Like my brother always says, I am probably old school. For me, it's an amazing feeling having my mom wake me up in the morning, her face being the first thing I see every year, finding the new dress ("Surprise!") I have to wear placed on the table when I come back after my bath, going to the same temple, meeting the same friends and/or their families. Makes me feel grounded, feel secure - for me, the neighbourhood where I spent the first seventeen years of my life is the place where nothing can go wrong, where every brick plays an old aunt that exclaims "Boy! Look how old you have become". People there are my excuses to relive my innocence, to remember where all this started. And given that it's a corner called Vijayalakshmipuram in Ambattur, things take eons to change. Every road (cricket pitches with galleries that extend to neighbour's terraces where history's etched in every broken window pane), every shop (where you shopped for rubber balls to rubbers!), every clinic (housing heartless doctors who draw your life into an empty syringe) to every soul who takes the 47D bus at 7:30 in the morning to reach office are still there like they have been painted as fixtures within a canvas.

And as the kid rides back on the bike to the bus stop watching the neighbourhood, deserted at nights but for a few blinking lights, he carries back a child like innocence into the cynical world - a dream about a happy place where all was once well, and will forever be. My pleasantville.