Irse, quedarse, volver

మా తరగతిలోని చిన్న శేఖర్ తల్లి డబ్బు పంపినా, అతని చేతి షూలు కుదురుతూనే ఉంటాయి. ఇక్కడ ఎవరైనా వెళ్తే, మిగిలినవాళ్ళ జీవితం "రాక్" లో ఉండకూడదని నా ఆశ. పాత పాటల్లో ఉన్నట్టు, బాధ ఎవరిదో గుర్తుండాలి.

Mamu sent a video call yesterday from Kathmandu—she's working as a caretaker for a family in Patan, sending money back to help fix our roof before the monsoon. I don't like her being so far, but I also see the new dye pots she paid for sitting clean in my workshop. The conversation about return is easy for people with savings; for us it is a cold calculation of how many months of winter you can sit through without a boiler.

अरे भाई, ये धर्मेंद्र प्रधान जी की बात सुन के मन में खटक गया। कल ही मेरी दुकान पर एक बच्चा आया था, बोला 'सर, मुझे टेंथ के लिए हिंदी की गाइड चाहिए', पर उसकी आँखों में वो चमक नहीं थी, जो हमारे ज़माने में किशोर दा के गाने सुनने आती थी। उनकी बातों में बड़ी-बड़ी योजनाएँ हैं, पर यहाँ तो पान-पूड़ी वाले के बच्चे को भी पता है कि सरकारी स्कूल की किताबें अब भी समय पर नहीं आतीं, भाई।

ಯಾವತ್ತೂ ಮೊದ್ಲು ನೀವು ಹೇಗಿದ್ದೀರಾ ಅಂತ ಕೇಳ್ಬೇಕು. ನಾನು ಇಲ್ಲ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಲ್ಲಿ ಫ್ಯಾನ್

My son in Guwahati sends money for the roof, but the forms for his visa to Spain were like reading a tangled radio circuit. When he speaks of returning, I measure it not in dreams but in the leak over our bed during last monsoon — will the state ensure his sacrifice mends something real?

Sometimes I think of my father’s old Hindi film posters, kept so carefully in a trunk—a piece of home he carried. Watching my sister apply for a visa, I see the same care, the same hope pressed between documents. It’s never just about leaving; it’s about what you choose to hold onto, yaar.

Watching athletes from so many places compete always reminds me of the families from our mountains who send a child to Canada or Australia for studies. Their old mothers come to my shop before winter, buying one extra razai to post abroad, saying the foreign quilts are never warm enough. For all our talk of visas and new passports, the heart still stitches its love into wool and sends it across oceans.

My sister's medical fees arrive every month from the same two clients — one in Delhi, one in Barcelona — and I've never met either face to face. Everyone talks about the emotional cost of migration, but nobody counts the two-week gap when the euro takes its sweet time converting and I'm left calculating if Maggi plus one egg is a luxury or a necessity. Waah, bas, data says remittances lift families faster than any government scheme ever could — but the delay between sending and receiving? That's where the real interest accumulates, yaar, and not in your favour.

My son sent a news clip of Dharmendra Pradhan talking about education. I looked at the screen, then at my hands stained with engine grease, and I thought—if my boy’s degree from Chandigarh gets him a solid job, that’s the real policy success. The rest is just noise on the radio.

The rain came sudden over Tamenglong today, yai, and my pocket radio crackled with some noise about people locking themselves inside a house for a game. My son in Bengaluru sends me clips of such things on his phone—ah, I think, all that electricity and anger just for a television show, while I worry if the medicine packets stay dry in your mother's old fishing bag. Maybe the real lock-up is the one we are born into, where a man works twenty years to send his boy to the city, and the city only teaches him to watch others pretend to suffer. Nou, I have a puncture to fix before the next climb—this cloud looks like it wants to stay angry tonight.

The Education Minister is talking about making English the medium for everything, and I’m sitting here after lunch, watching the light hit the shampoo bottles. My mother learned her cutting

अरे बहिनिया, ये विजय जी का नाम सुन के मन में ख्याल आया—हमारे गाँव में भी एक लड़का था, नटवर, जो दुबई भाग गया था बढ़ईगिरी करने। दस साल बाद लौटा तो हाथ में पैसा था, पर माँ की आँखें रो-रो के धुँधली हो गई थीं। चुनरी रँगते-रँगते सोचती हूँ, जो अपना घर-आँगन छोड़ के जाते हैं, उनकी जड़ें कहाँ रह जाती हैं—हमारी हल्दी के रंग जैसी पक्की या धोए से उतर जाने वाली?

कल एक दिदी ने मेरे बनाए कुशन कवर की फोटो भेजी, उनका लड़का स्पेन में है और उसने वहीँ से ऑर्डर दिया था। घर छोड़कर जाना मजबूरी होती है, बेटा, पर उस पैसे से उसकी माँ ने अपने घर की छत ठीक करवाई। यह देखकर लगता है, जहाँ भी जाओ, जड़ें तो यहीं की मिट्टी में रहती हैं।

यहाँ फैक्ट्री की नाइट शिफ्ट में सिलाई करते हुए, मैं भी अपने घर पैसा भेजता हूँ। मेरी बहन की पढ़ाई इसी से चलती है, यही मेरा सुकून है। पर सुबह कारखाने के गेट से सूरज निकलता देखकर लगता है, जहाँ जड़ें जम गई हों, वहीं से तो बदलाव की शुरुआत होती है।