The word Homesick is too timid for the emotion it contains. To me, it feels more like grief. A mould or moss that grows deeper and greener with time, festering in corners neglected by seperation.
Today is Ganesh Chathurti, an Indian festival where the sweet, portly Ganpati — the remover of obstacles — is the reigning hero. It is a day cousins come over, your mother makes kheer or panchagajjai or pedhas depending on which part of the country you are from, and you all have warm lunch, followed by a long communal nap.
It is also a day when everyone tells you it will surely rain. A symbol of Ganpati’s presence as the folklore goes, and somehow it always does; even all the way here in Melbourne, where the dark clouds didn’t part until 5 pm today, making us turn all the lights on at the height of the afternoon.
We survived today by hand-building a Ganpati idol with play dough and making sweets that made our home smell like our mothers’. My sister-in-law messaged me the words ‘desperately homesick’ at some point, which I then looped back to a friend also away from her home in America, and together we all nodded for the peace it brought to have it named and mirrored — Separated together is a removed obstacle for sure.
Now, it’s time for kheer.
