The+Birds+Are+Flying+Back+Home

I 1947. It was a foggy winter morning. Asha was having her usual breakfast, puffed rice with milk and banana. In Dhaka, East Pakistan, fogs are quite disciplined. They make the streets and fields invisible but they seldom intrude inside the house. But that morning was agonizingly special. There was a mysterious silence in their house. The elders were hardly talking to each other. In spite of her tender age Asha could guess that something was wrong in the elders’ world. She overheard her Ma talking to their neighbor, “How can anyone kill another person?” The neighbor was equally alarmed, “Do you know that in Narayangunj they have not only burnt down all their houses but people have been running around with their bodies on fire. Asha was too young to understand all these but she could visualize the scene with a story her grand Ma once told her. In the Sunderbans, people go to gather honey from the bee-hives. They put fire in those hives and when all the bees are gone the honey gatherers suck those hives with some pipes and gather honey.

It took Asha almost ten years to understand the mystery of that day. There was a riot going on the streets of Dhaka. Hindus and Muslims were killing each other. Unplanned partition of India in 1947 resulted in a huge loss of innocent lives and properties. People, both Hindus and Muslims, fled from their age-old, traditional settlements for their lives: the Hindus to India and the Muslims to East Pakistan.

Raghunath, Asha’s father was a practicing doctor in Dhaka. He had his contacts with Royal College, London. He preferred to migrate to London with his wife and their only daughter.

II

2007. It had been raining since morning. London rains do not seem to stop at all. It goes on and on. Radha was desperately waiting for the rains to stop. She has a very important piece of news for her friend next door. She could have told the news over the phone but she preferred to tell it in person. Her Ma has told her last night, “We are going back to India”.

The situations have changed in India. Radha’s father Charles has got a very lucrative offer from AT&T. He would be the Country Head with all the expatriate benefits. Anjali, Radha’s mother would also have no problem in getting a transfer in HSBC Bank in New Delhi. Radha has heard her Mom Talking few days ago over the phone, “The offer for Charles is unbeatable. The Indian market is too big and if Charles can succeed in India then the company has promised him the post of Managing Director. And the Indian schools are so good and we always wanted Radha to avail it”.

Radha was greatly thrilled. She has heard so many stories about India from her grand Ma. Asha could never love London. The weather was dull and people so tight lipped. As an Asian migrant even her Oxford days were not that palatable. She was married to a British doctor and got settled amidst those British aristocracies. But she took some extra efforts to imbibe into her daughter and grand daughter some typical Indian customs and mannerisms.

III

The Air India flight to New Delhi was at 10 p.m. Charles was already in the airport with his family by 6.30. “You can never trust the London traffic”. Radha was quite excited. Grand Ma had told her that in India there is a huge river called The Ganges, which starts from the Himalayas and flows down to the Bay of Bengal. Somewhere upstream at a place called Varanasi, people float small bowls made of leaves with some offering and a small lighted candle on it. Thousands of bowls on some festive nights float on the river and continue their journeys. People offer such puja to express their gratitude to their ancestors. Radha loves to dream that one day she would also float such a lighted bowl for Asha from the banks of the Ganges. The bowl would move on and on all along the Gangetic plains of Bengal then move on to the sea and then to the oceans. The lights would touch the shores of Singapore, Maldives, London, Africa, West Indies, Canada and the USA. Who knows where our ancestors are now. Let them all be happy and let there be happiness everywhere. The Boeing 747 was full of people of various colors and creeds. The sari-clad air-hostess in some heavy accent welcomed all the passengers first in Hindi and then in English, “Namaste, welcome on-board Air India flight IC 2756 from London to New Delhi”.

The clouds outside the air-plane have no nationality and no political boundaries either. They just float and float and float bringing in with them stories of Asha, Radha and the rest.