Where My Soul Lies

“My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.”

(An excerpt from,” Who says words with my mouth?”)

- Jelaluddin Rumi

Where My Soul Lies

It was all messed up. My work, Emma, home and every other thing.  Even my car had started conspiring against me. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was like a dead corpse who was left stranded near the graveyard. So I decided it’s better to leave. Better to leave a habitat where you find no peace.

I am a mechanical engineer. I have lived in Boston for long. My mother and father were Indians. They both eloped from Punjab in 1985 when they were around 25 and settled here on Pemberton Road. Both had well-off families back there in Punjab, and they are highly educated. So, settling here away from the family and finding jobs was no big deal for them. They, officially, got married in 1987 as Sukhvinder Singh and Harshdeep Kaur. Both got the green card by 1989 and later in May of the next year I was born. They gave me an American name Nicholas (Nick). Living in America, having an American name, wearing American clothes, eating American food (beef included), and taking the oath to American allegiance, it never dawned on me that I had Indian roots, until the age of10. Then I started realizing that I am growing different from other students in the school and that when my parents fight, they spoke some different language which I later got to know was Punjabi.

My parents got divorced by 2002; it was termed as “mutual”. Both of them agreed to part ways as they had each found a new partner for themselves. Court decided that since the mother is working, she would take custody of the lone minor boy. And from 2002 to 2009 I had seen my mother changing many partners, marrying none. Every time she had a fight with any of her boyfriends, she would come banging into my room and cry for some time. And then when done with all the tears, she would make me sit near her and tell me about the place she had lived. At the age of 16, I got to know where my parents actually lived before settling here. She had said Kila Raipur near Ludhiana. She described her home stretched in the area of 8000 sq. meters, with an open veranda in the middle of the house. 6 families were living in the home. She also said that like hers, dad too had the house of same architecture. I would have rather called it a mansion. She described the blooming mustard field outside the house, with the scarecrow in the middle, a pond nearby, rough roads, bullock carts and everything which an American country-side has.

 By the age of 19, when I was about to graduate, I had seen DDLJ, Namastey London, Veer- Zara and many other movies giving me a somewhat clearer picture of Punjab. And I realized there was much more to it than any countryside in America. Later on, I realized that there, in Kila Raipur, prevailed something which had led to an upsurge of emotions in me. They were weird and wonderful emotions of love, refuge, devotion, and patriotism for some other country, some other land.

As time passed, I started to see a recurring dream of an open veranda, a big house and me standing in the middle of Mustard Field, with cool breeze billowing away from the resting mustard plant, kissing my cheeks, muttering my name in a beautiful voice. At the age of 22, with the start of my career as an intern with Ford Automobiles, I already had as many relationships like my mother. But, Emma had been the best of all. We were in the same batch of Masters, she was pursuing Electrical engineering and I had chosen Mechanical. We had dated for 5 months before finally agreeing to take our relationship forward. But as time began to play its course, she started behaving in the American way. Casual relationships, flirting with other guys, hangover, and every other thing. I decided to make her understand what I wanted but she was adamant that she didn’t want to commit something. I was left broken.  I couldn’t even return to my mother, I had left her after my masters. She had started living with a man who was violent with me. And I didn’t know where my father was. In all this mess, I was fired off from the post of Head Supervisor as they found me inefficient for work in the recent times.

A week before finally making this decision, I again had a vision of the same mustard field, same picturesque location but this time wind had something new for me, a smell, which gave the feeling of oneness, a feeling of intimacy, love and bond. Also, it bought a yellow translucent strip of cloth, kind of scarf flapping in the air. The cloth got tucked to my face, just like any other Bollywood film. It was then, the next day, I decided to move to the place, which had been in my dreams for long. To the place where my parents were born. The place to which, I suddenly started feeling, I must return. The place which I feel is the refuge of my soul.

Sitting here in the airport lounge, waiting for my flight to Delhi. All the flashbacks from my life in Boston go rolling like a film reel. I realize I will be having no job once I land in India. All I would have are some savings left with me.

I have to take a taxi and travel next 6 hours before I reach Ludhiana. I had found about an automobile company named Escorts there, where perhaps seeing my portfolio they would employ me. Whatever it is now, I can clearly hear someone calling me from that mustard field and I must end up there.

                                           ……………………………………………………………

                                                            In Kila Raipur, Same Day

Gurdeep Singh: Oo Biji, sunti ho??
(Where are you mother??)

Manpreet Kaur: Ke ho gya Gurdeep, Chilata kyun hai
(What has happened Gurdeep, why are you wailing like this?)

Gurdeep: Biji, aey rishta bhi na-manzoor ho gaya Simran da.
(These ones too, didn’t say yes for Simran.)

Manpreet Kaur: Fikr na Karin Gurdeepe, Apni Simran ke liye koi changa villayti munda hi haan kare gya si. Mera dil kehanda hai. Menne hi odhani hai Simran de sar wich peeli chunari, mehndi wale din. Tu Fikar na Karin.
(You don’t worry Gurdeep; I will consent for no less than some handsome foreigner for Simran. My instincts tell me, it will be me who’ll put on her the yellow chunari (translucent scarf) on the day of her mehndi.)