A Stranger At Home [Part -2]

I wonder what it is about staying away from home that really changes a person. Is it the sheer freedom that he gets to taste, or the responsibility that comes veiled along with it. Whatever it is, it was evident that I had changed. For the better or for the worse is yet to be determined. “I really don’t understand why you have to stay up for so long in the night and sleep all through the morning!!! It is not healthy for your body you know! You werent’ like this when you were here! How early you used to get up and collect the flowers, and do the pooja! Now you don’t even bow down properly in front of the God, or sing the prayers! What has become of you!!” the exasperated cries from my mother only bade me pull the covers all over me, and huddle up on the bed. I was able to get off the initial days on the pretext of jet-lags. But it was evident that the pretext wouldn’t last for long. It is hard to convince them of the efficacy of working at nights especially when during the day time they have the annoying TV turned on.

Well, in all sincerity it is not the TV that is so much annoying as the local programs that they watch. I was more accustomed to the occassional National Geographic, Discovery, and FRIENDS on the lighter side, not to mention the animations. They found them repulsive. I was only trying to draw a compromise between these polarities. The fall of night had offered me the shoulder to lean on and do my work in peace. Am I rationalizing? I wish I knew a sincere answer to this question.

The plans of relaxing and frolicking the initial 2 weeks of my return was dashed as soon as I landed. There were responses to my job applications and a series of interviews had been lined up. How I wished that I be left in peace for sometime! Needless to say, most of them were dashed on the rocks. “You know, I really don’t think you are putting in your sincere efforts on the job front” – It was now the turn of my father. “All you do is sit in the house and say that you are applying over through emails. We used to go out and look out for jobs. Why dont you visit the companies and drop your profiles everywhere?!! Am I supposed to tell you all this? I expected you to have learnt something after having gone to US for so many years! Seems like all you have learnt is junk! Your degree isn’t serving any purpose! It was a waste, what with you still remaining jobless!! Why don’t you atleast enquire about some courses that you can do here through which you could get a job! Huh?! All you do is sit in your room in front of your laptop and work away to glory, that I fail to see anywhere approaching!!” The seething emotions inside me took a long time to cool down. I wanted to shriek that it had hardly been a couple of weeks since I returned! I wanted a respite from all this. I decided I will get out of the house and go and drop the resumes at a few companies close by.