India Calling!

Samara Ogra Menon

For many people going to their home country means a lot to them. You may not have been born in that country or raised there, but for most people their country means a lot to them. 

During lockdown me and my family were pretty sure we wouldn’t see our cousins in India for over
2 years. Although our prediction was correct, it wasn’t something to be happy about so as soon as travelling was allowed my mum pulled out her laptop and immediately booked tickets for India. Then came the waiting. The terrible ordeal of counting down every single day that went past, looking for upcoming milestones. “3 months to go”. “1 month to go”. “2 weeks to go”. Then finally… “WAKE UP! YOU ARE GOING TO MISS YOUR FLIGHT!!”. The morning when we had to leave for India, no one was in the mood to be grumpy, there was too much to do. After months of not going anywhere we were finally free for 6 whole weeks. 

The drive to Heathrow was quiet with all of us sitting groggy eyed in the seat waiting to reach. We reached quite early to avoid queues and check-in chaos. With the goodbyes said we headed through security and into the airport, and then had to wait for 3 hours to make up for the early arrival! Most people like it when things are happening, but I like waiting for that thing to happen. It makes me more excited for when things actually happen. I don’t know how we managed to survive the 3 hour wait but what I do remember was it was full of tantrums and sibling “love”. 

After what felt like ages we were finally allowed to board. This was the moment we had been waiting for… 3 years. The excitement of 8 and a half hours of nonstop movies, games and music only to stop for toilet breaks and whether we wanted veg or non-veg, is unique to travel to India. But as all stories go there is a problem. In our case our dream of almost 9 hours of screen time was deflated when to our horror only 1 of our 3 screens was fully functioning. Great, thought my Dad, more fighting! And he wasn’t wrong. Well… at least we weren’t memorising every crack in our home during lockdown as we were bored out of our wits. Instead we were going to India. Finally, going to India. 

What do I love about India? I love meeting my cousins in real life who I’ve only seen for years only on WhatsApp. Seeing their faces light up and telling me how much I’ve grown makes me feel really happy. It’s the kind of happiness you can’t replace with a video call.  To me, India is so much more than just meeting my family, it’s trying to catch mosquitoes, suffering from the dreaded mosquito bites, turning the fan onto the highest setting, eating LOTS of yummy food, going on rickshaws. And then obviously meeting everyone I haven’t seen for the past year. The first few days are full off saying hellos, exchanging gifts, hugs and then you almost feel part of their daily routine. 

Nowadays you can easily get all sorts of food from around the world but the joy of plucking and eating fresh mangoes from your grandparent’s tree is amazing! That’s the fun of travelling to India. You get to indulge in all the food that you don’t usually have, stay up late to watch movies with your cousins, go on long train journeys and buy Tinkle comics and sweets from the train station, enjoy the sound of ‘chai chai..’ throughout the journey…there’s so much! However, every holiday eventually comes to an end and then its back on the plane behind a stranger who tilts their chair too far back and hoping the screen works on the return trip home.

Samara Ogra Menon
July 2022