You Can Never Wander Too Far From Home

BY VAATHSALYA KARPE

I missed Hyderabad the second I left.

Everything went by in a blur, quicker than I could process. My extended family, all of my cousins and aunts and uncles who were still in the country, had come to the airport to send me off. My departure was an excuse to get together and catch up on gossip. In the midst of the chatter that buzzed among them, I tried to savor all of the people around me, to capture and remember them with my eyes and my camera. I didn’t know when I would see them again, and, for a split second, I didn’t want to leave.

While I waited to walk through the airport entrance, I felt myself being torn by my past and my future. On one hand, I was terrified out of my mind — I was be leaving everything I’d ever known for an unknown, and on another hand, I was excited for the endless possibilities that I was stepping into. But most of all, I was jittery with nerves and emotions I was trying not to show. I reminded myself that this was a choice that I was consciously making and that I was leaving much earlier than most of my cousins did, who usually waited until grad school to leave home. As the tears threatened to spill, the mellow August evening breeze playing on my face was a brief reassurance that everything was going to be okay.

After a slew of hugs, kisses and goodbyes, my promises to keep in touch and their teasing threats/pleas not to forget them, I left. I walked through the doors with all the courage I could muster, which wasn’t enough to look back one last time.

The stress was already taking over me as I entered the airport, for it was my first time flying internationally in over a decade. My dad was on the line, explaining how to get through the airport while trying to mask the fact that he was more stressed than me. The endlessly long and messy baggage check line made my paranoid-self very grateful I said goodbye to my family earlier than they suggested. Somehow, I successfully navigated through the airport and found myself at the flight gate. I wished I had more time to catch my breath and roam around. Looking at people travelling together made me wish I had a companion to ease my nerves. But before I could get too caught up in my feelings, I was on the flight.

As we took off, I could hear my heart pounding against my chest, seemingly louder than the take-off boom. As I looked out the window, watching my hometown get smaller and smaller, eventually vanishing in the night sky, I felt a part of myself stay behind. I wondered what everyone else was doing as they watched my flight depart, but knowing them, and having been in the situation myself so many times before, I knew they would head straight to McDonald’s for dinner before heading back home.

My nerves eased once I found a movie to watch. But somewhere over the Arabian Sea en route to Abu Dhabi, I looked out at the blanket of clouds passing underneath my feet and burst into tears. I wasn’t sure why I was crying, but I made sure to do discretely and completely. I promised myself that I would return as soon as I could.

It’s been two and a half years since I’ve left home, and the longing is really starting to hit me. I always thought that I was the kind of person who would leave their hometown and only return for brief twoweek-long visits. For years, there was nothing more that I wanted but to escape the routine life I had and explore the world I was being sheltered from. I thought that there was nothing Hyderabad could offer me anymore, that I saw everything interesting and needed to move on. But no one told me that moving on meant leaving a part of me behind. No one told me that the slightest crowd would take me back to the streets of Hyderabad.

MAYA FIDZIUKIEWICZ, USA

I thought that the eight-thousand-something mile journey from Hyderabad to Madison would be the hardest part of the journey, but I wasn’t prepared for the longing that would hit me later on. As much as I have tried and will continue to try making Madison home, deep down, I know it never truly will be. And that goes for any other place in the world as well. When I use the word “home” to describe my tiny college apartment in Madison, I feel guilt. I say it out of convenience rather than truth.

Don’t mistake me. Traveling has made me find a newfound appreciation towards the things that don’t receive the applause. And I’m so grateful each day for this opportunity. But I am reminded of Hyderabad everywhere I go. A warm day takes me back to when light leaking through the trees soaked my face. A summertime breeze reminds me of the Hyderabadi night breeze that was just the right measure of cold caressing my clammy cheeks. Walking through UW Madison’s hidden Botany Garden reminds me of my mother’s thriving mini garden, which she made work despite all the odds against it. Hearing people yelling on State Street reminds me of my neighbors arguing over things I didn’t know could be argued over. But when I feel the most at home is when I’m sitting by Lake Mendota, the heart of Madison, just as Hyderabad’s heart-shaped lake, Hussain Sagar.

Today, my dreams consist of living an idyllic life, waltzing through the traffic with inherent expertise and pausing only to get some street food. The center of my circumference is Hyderabad. Among the organized chaos and irrational rationality of my home is where I belong.

MAYA FIDZIUKIEWICZ, USA