Khuda Hafiz ..

For a city which boasts of laying the foundation for the tallest building in the world, C-11 is just another three storeyed building in International City. For its occupants, it is a ‘museum’ of (at least) half-a-year-full of memories they’d cherish forever. As the cab distanced from the hostel, on its way to drop me at the airport, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic even before I departed the country.

Throughout our stay, we had been finding ways to keep in touch with our loved ones bypassing the expensive international calling rates via phone, craving for home cooked food, surviving on low budget and cribbing about little time for lengthy assignments. Despite all this, the sadness of leaving the place far surpassed the excitement to go back home. It felt as if I was just leaving behind a joint family of 120 plus members to come back to stay with a nuclear one. (Even when quite a few had left before I did, there was an ‘informed delusion’ that C11 is where they belonged to and they’d come back)

Over the past few days, as my coming back to the 'first home' sunk in, I realized that I did not have to break the bond with my new found giant joint family at all. In fact, the members just dispersed across the globe to realize their dreams and I can be sure that I’d find a few of them in any part of the world I go. The past one year increased the size of my family multi-fold and made the world my new home :)