Homeward bound ...
Ramarao Kanneganti (rama@writeme.com)
11 Apr 1998 18:03:05 -0000
[Pardon the clutter. I am just moving out, and clearing my desk.
I promise next time I will be more organized].
Homeward Bound
-
... each factory and town look the same to me ...
Finally. I am homeward bound. After all these years, I am
going home. Of course, I have been seeing my parents,
brother, and cousins frequently. Still, I have not seen home
for a long time. It is as if I almost forgot what home is
like.
The additional emotional baggage that goes with a trip long
awaited bothers me. I wish I could behave that I go to India
every other week. I am not sure why, but I feel that I am
going to strange-land. It is the same sadness I feel when I
visit my alma mater. It is as though we have become
irrelevant. It is like somebody saying, "The world can get
along fine without you, Thank you". At least there is some
comfort in such a rebuke. Imagine how it would feel if the
burden of guilt of leaving were to fall on one's shoulders.
May be I should be emotionally reminiscing, of the hills,
farms, people, and places. But I am not. When I think of the
place I was raised, I feel the impotence at history
unfolding. I cannot control the destiny of the people. Not
that I want to, but I would like to see flowers bloom where
cicadas sing. I don't have that golden key, I have not drunk
from the fountain of knowledge. Yet, I feel I should have,
at least, participated in the history. To understand me, try
imagining yourself as a guest at your own wedding!
I too suffer from exaggerated, inflated importance of the
self, as much as the next person. That is not half the
problem. In this instance it seems to be the same melancholy
of seeing your ex-girl friend sharing the intimacies with
somebody else.
When I was young, I would look though the windows of bus
when traveling and imagine every place to be mine. I would
say to myself "I will remember this particular bend in the
road, from years hence", with all good intentions. I look at
a face and think "I cannot forget this face as long as I
live". I could not bear to think that the bend in the road
would disappear from my memory, or even from that road. I
wanted to know every place and every face.
It is down-right silly, of course. I am not into solipsism. I
know that other people exist, live, love, and die without regard
to me. Still, they are my people. I would like to be a part
of their lives. I do not know how.
How do I feel now? It is not the rage of early youth, when I
had all the answers and was eager to educate my own
world. It is the weariness of eyes that have seen the
limitations of a mind. Rambling, and meandering through
phrases, trying to find a coherent line of thought, I
remember the difficulties of expressing oneself. It is like
trying to calculate square root of pi in Raman numerals. Or,
"padma patramivaambha saa".
See you later, suckers!
Ramarao Kanneganti
Apr 11, 98.