Yonder – here they come…

“Study, your studies is more important than the TV serial. These serials can wait until after your exams”, screamed the distraught mother at Aryan.

Her son turned a deaf ear towards his mother. He was, by now, getting used to her words and they had no significant effect on him anymore.

“Let him try his best. Don’t push him too much”, her husband often told her.

“Keep telling this and he won’t go anywhere in life. Do you know how long the neighbour’s son studies? But the point is that her husband listens to her and therefore her children also listen to her.”

He knew what followed.  

He was prepared.

The final line, as usual, was “At this rate he will not even get an admission in a local college, leave alone a foreign university”, she said.

Yonder, here he comes!

A few years later, Aryan was in a not-so-good, yet not-so-bad foreign university. He was toiling away, only to make his mother happy. He missed her and wished that she had not insisted on him going abroad.

He missed his friends and the neighborhood that he grew up in.

Whenever such disturbing thoughts occupied his mind, he immersed himself more into his books.

“Keep yourself positive Aryan, your hard work will one day pay-off” told his professors. True to their words, he got a good job yonder!

He called his mother after he returned from office that day.

“I am planning to take up a job near our house. I really miss home and I have done my best. Hope you are proud of me. I will let you know when I get a good job there”, he said, hoping that his mother will be happy to have him back.

“Why do you want leave a cushy job and come here? Do you want to struggle in the dirt and sweat here?” came the reply from his mother.

“He wanted to tell her that he did not mind all that. All that mattered to him was to be near her, but she refused to internalise that. What could he do? By now he was used to obeying her wishes.”

He dug himself deeper into his work and received his much anticipated promotion and pay hike. He was happy, but had no one to share his happiness with.

His colleagues insisted that he gave them a party and he obliged.

Before long, he realised that he had started growing roots to the place and he seemed happy with his work. 

One day his mother called him. She wanted him to get married.

Her wants are always fulfilled.

He got married.

Aryan’s wife quit her job so that she could join him in his place of work. Days rolled into months and then into years. Aryan had a beautiful daughter. He wanted her to learn the traditional dance and art forms.

“She has to be culturally grounded”, he often told his wife. “One day we will go back to the place that we came from.”

“Aditi, it is time for your music lessons. You have to learn your previous lessons by-heart. Girls your age, back home are far ahead”, Aditi’s mother told her.

“These lessons are boring. Why do I need to learn them?” Aditi protested.

Aryan did not want his daughter to become a misfit when he returns home. Aryan’s parents and his in-laws, took turns in taking care of Aditi.

Aditi blossomed into a beautiful young lady. She was musically talented and chose to take up her further studies in the contemporary form of music offered by a specific university in the same area as her father’s workplace.

One day, Aryan’s mother called. His father was serious and wanted to see him. Aditi’s assessment exams had begun and she could not accompany them. Aryan and his wife went to meet his father.

For the first time his father told Aryan how much he missed his son. His mother sat beside him and cried.

When it was time for Aryan to leave, his mother held his hand and told him that the time for his return to his home had finally arrived. Aryan’s father cleared his throat before he spoke “Aryan, you will come nowhere. Your daughter should not live in a place that is not close to her heart. Let her live her life wherever she wants to. Yonder, is where you are.”

His voice was finally heard!