What I want to write about is given the chance or opportunity would I leave my nest & and start a life away from the present own-home set up… or cling on…and, whatever might be the answer, why?

In the 25 years of journey that I have so far undertaken, I did get the chance to get away from the home barriers and live independently. Well almost … as, the financial string was attached.

kismat did offer me two long years away-from-home, live-alone “exclusive” moments away from the familiar crowed and surroundings. I had the option to drag on in that road towards total freedom, but came back to my old and “restricted” nest.

While alone, I got the option to experiment with new ways of doing things, to think and feel differently etc, etc. But here I live with a bunch of people who know only one road and consider others as not socially acceptable or respectable ones. It’s a surrounding that restricts even ones thinking. And, I think living in this surrounding for too long has even made my thinking shift towards their views. So have I become a self-restricting individual today? Or am I free & just confused?

When I think of the two years alone, I feel free from certain add-on responsibility, which are otherwise not avoidable when one live with parents. I think those married and staying with in laws would understand the situation much better. It is worse if both the husband and wife work, specially, in the initial years of marriage I believe. But I am still a single so what the hack…

Say given the option what would you prefer: to break free or remain within the parent trap! You won’t deny that living alone is fun would you? The daily chores like making a cup of tea every morning, preparing breakfast, running to the dhobi’s place in between to get your ironed pieces, running to the neighborhood grocery store for two eggs and a small bread, or a Dhara pouch….Well it involves lot of running around yet fun. After a hard day’s work you return along with some sabjis and a few pieces of fish if lucky. Then there is this room mate of yours who never wakes up on time never prepares his or her cup of tea and on and on…He or she gets ready to go to some party by then. Oh life…

You do enjoy too…on the weekends though. A movie maybe…a few pegs… or if kangaal a few puffs do the trick. And of course the visit to that special place is a must… And having dinner there… Drinking and talking late into the night…A hangover on Sunday morning…Straight away lunch after a cup of tea...Oh well that was nice wasn’t it.

I believe the fun factor comes from the fact that one gets the freedom to choose and find his or her own way, out from any given situation, hard or soft! Like the new Opel ad-line goes, simply bindaas.

It was a bindaas life for me cause I was in a different city, thousands of miles away from family and home. As you all would know, at one’s own place one has to take care of the family prestige factor in every step.

So why home… Why such a big sacrifice of all the good things that the former lifestyle package offers? What is it that is so alluring about one’s home that makes us clog on to it most of the time!

At times I feel that it is noting but my own laziness and fear to move out and take some risk that has made me a home-bug. Am I afraid of the world outside or is it simply the simple yet big comforts of home that has blinded my vision.

Well I mean staying with parents mean no need to think about cooking, washing clothes, ironing, no udhaar request at the grocery shop and PCO etc., etc.. But, at the same time one misses out the finer points of the open road on the other side. The party’s… the days and nights together… moving out or coming home at the oddest possible hour etc.. etc..

I must admit that I did miss all these for the first few months after homecoming. However, things are once again in their respective places. I am used to the routine with restrictions and boundaries. Though the mind keeps on floating or slipping off to different routes at times.

The other day this friend of mine asked me to convince my Mom to let me move out. I promptly answered that it was not my Mom that I’ve to convince but myself. So is it Mom… Am I, what some of you would love to brand as Mama’s boy or the like! Well I don’t deny that I don’t love her but then who does not. Anyway don’t know whether she believed me or not or how convinced I was about my own words.

But than this is life… and freedom or no freedom the journey is on…

by SANTANU BURAGOHAIN(santanuburagohain@rediffmail.com)