A few of my books have managed to escape my Calcutta shelves and follow me to Ireland. I had been anticipating this special delivery for days. Waiting to be reconciled with a little piece of home I had wistfully left behind. Some of them have my notes scribbled on the margins. Some of them my soul. A little crumpled paperback here, a tired hardcover there. A proud new copy boasting of its young exuberance, a pre-loved edition humbling it down with its accumulated wisdom – humbling it down with the reminder that it didn’t yet know the joy of being touched and embraced by countless fingers; it didn’t yet know the bliss of ageing. I eavesdrop on their little murmurs. Who are they? They sound… different. They don’t really belong to me. These strange things.

I call the last-dialled number on my phone and ask, “Are these books mine?” “Yes, they are,” Mum answers, understandably perplexed.

They don’t seem mine. The texture is all wrong. The scent is foreign. Was this book always this red? What’s wrong with this one’s spine? This handwriting – it’s unfamiliar, not mine. This is not home. This is not the home I had been waiting for. This is not home. Hope. Is a strange thing. I pick a paperback lying on the desk, and, reassured by its warmth and familiarity, sigh in relief. This one has been borrowed from the college library. Now, this right here… this is the one I know. Not home. No, no. Not home, for sure. But a temporary place of residence. Reserved as mine for a few fleeting moments.

~