“Don't be so serious,” Chastised my dear friend Sarit in the middle of our back and forth e-discussion between two old classmates about the outcome of recent US Presidential election. We had gone from primary through high schools together while growing up in Calcutta, India, but spent most of our adult lives here in US. A flashback jumped from mid-1960. We just walked along Cornwallis Street a couple of kilometers on a hot summer day from our school at College Street arriving in front of a locally-famous “Lassi Shop” right across from the entrance of the narrow street that would lead him to his house, while I would take a trolley for the rest of my journey to my home far in the north. We were looking forward to a glass of this place’s famous chilled mango lassi. Alas! He ran out of the mangoes for the day, but offered to make a pineapple one instead. No, stickler in me wanted the mango lassi, prompting Sarit’s same friendly rebuke. Then came the second flashback: fast forward to a few decades when I attempted to recreate that past walking along the same route, this time on my own. Like humans who inhabit them, cities also change as they age. I could not recognize any of the new stores that popped up while I was gone. Millennial youngsters with their smartphones and designer sneakers were more hip. But, for me, the extent of change was far deep. That lassi shop did not exist anymore to offer me my past glass of missing mango lassi. Instead, a modern café full of teenagers, eyes glued to i-phone screens, while ears plugged in for streaming music.
And I wondered, can one really ever go back to home he left behind!
And I wondered, can one really ever go back to home he left behind!
