Childhood – Return home
As a child, after spending hours running barefoot in the open field, chasing butterflies and playing games under the golden sun, the day would slowly begin to slip into twilight. With dust on our feet and laughter still echoing in our voices, we would make our way home — three of us, inseparable friends. Sometimes we held hands tightly, other times we threw an arm around each other’s shoulders, feeling the warmth of friendship and the simplicity of youth. The world around us would quiet down as the evening deepened — birds returning to their nests, the smell of dinner beginning to drift from nearby kitchens, and the sky turning from orange to deep blue.
But what made our return truly special was the sight waiting for us ahead — Anand’s mother, standing at the gate or peeking from the veranda, always watching for us. Her face would light up the moment we appeared on the dusty path. She wasn’t just a mother to Anand — to us, she felt like a mother too. Her presence brought a sense of welcome and comfort, as though she held the entire neighborhood’s childhood in her gentle hands. It wasn’t just going home; it was the joy of being seen, expected, and loved, wrapped in the glow of a fading day.
After the game was over and the field had begun to empty, many children would quietly return home alone, retracing the same path they had taken in the afternoon. Heads down, dust clinging to their sandals, they walked the worn footpaths with the day’s memories already fading behind them. Their silhouettes grew smaller against the backdrop of the sinking sun, vanishing one by one into the alleys and courtyards of their homes.
But we — the few who always stuck together — were different. We didn’t just walk home; we carried the spirit of the game with us, laughing, arguing about who had won, sharing secrets, and inventing wild stories that grew more fantastic the closer we got to home. Our voices, full of excitement and joy, would echo far and wide, like data flowing from every direction — as if we were reporting to the world everything that had happened on the field that day. There was a kind of magic in those moments. We didn’t want the fun to end, and so we clung to each other until the last possible second — until one friend turned left, another took the narrow lane, and the last of us stood at the gate, waving goodbye. Even then, there was happiness — because we had shared the whole journey together, all the way from the first kick of the ball to the final goodbye under the evening stars.
