my pilgrimage

Here's a poem i wrote. it was for a competition at school... hope u like it!!!

My pilgrimage…
It wasn’t to Mecca or Medina;
It wasn’t to Varanasi,
Nor was it to the Vatican.

It was going back home
To my Amma, to my family;
Going back to India,
To the place I still consider home.

Staying away for years
From the native soil,
From my Amma’s soulful love,
So divine and holy and only for me.

In the flight back home,
My memories overtook me…
Took me to the past, to where I grew;
To the colors, fields, dances and lullabies.

Incomplete was I…
For so many years I was away…
Amiss was Amma’s curries, spankings, cajolings and nagging;
And Appa’s thrashings and bashings and the teeming yet hidden love.

The endless 2 hours had now ended;
The pilot announced the arrival of India…
I, a pilgrim, spiritually yet selfishly,
Had reached the place that created me.

I got down—on thick concrete grounds.
What would I have not done for the moist native soil??
Not disheartened, I took the taxi to my village.
I saw going apast me many years of change…

I soon saw my house before me, unchanged.
Thankful was I for the time’s patient wait.
Outside stood Amma, to usher me in,
Telling me that I’d grown ill and thin.

Appa and Amma hugged me tight;
Tears welled down my cheeks.
I’d reached my destination.
Isn’t my pilgrimage a pilgrimage in itself too?

My pilgrimage…
It wasn’t to any spiritual centre…
It was to my parents, to what created me.
It was to the place that completes me.