"This was your first home." Had chuckled Ma staring at the structure after what had seemed eons. A sultry Dehradun afternoon and an uncanny familiarity with the old colonial bunglow made me feel restless. I wanted to explore the house and ask those resposible - "Why would you partition such a beautiful bunglow into three?" It was FRI after that. The majestic academic building and huge lawns. We stood by the side of a gravel path and looked upward. Mussorie in all its innocence, completey unaware of me was a picture in tranquility. "Thats where we have the academy, as a child you were learning to walk in the corridor connecting kitchen with sitting room in the course director's bunglow," she wasn't done yet. "You were fascinated by the sight of gentlemen officers on horse backs and would clap aloud. Alas, you will not understand. ..... Well each to his own."
This was about 3 years ago and the clapping was summer of 1982.
As our car took the Rajpur road on the 30th, and familiarity began to knock hard, the above conversation played like a feature in my mind. With every hair pin bend and a gain in altitude, I was trying to answer myriad questions, some exstential and some prosaic. Is this homecoming, or the mountains were up to their usual trickery? Am I not the same person who defended vehmently, his idea of serving in the private sector. Did I not force myself to believe that Mussorie was a hill station best avoided because it would remind me of a place I should have been to but wouldn't go to because of reasons galore? Did I not pin to dine at the corner table of The Savoy, overlooking Dehra and sang praises of Kasmanda Palace to a dear friend while nibbling a dosa at Lexington?
Was woken out of my reverie by a phone call, "How are you - destiny's child? Have they allotted your cadre yet? Aren't you feeling great? Would you be the sahib, will they let you wear your tweed and those detestful cufflings?......."
With a cursory reply or two I hung up and the car drove past Library Point. 2km to the academy. Alas....each to his own, I guess life has a habit of coming full circle.
