As I begin the journey back, I find myself gathering things…

Not luggage….

Just memories….

I came not just to my hometown , but to the little girl I once was.

As I climbed the temple steps and walked the familiar roads, I could almost see her again—ten years old, in her white Bata canvas shoes, hopping from one stone to another without a care in the world.

Every Sunday, my mother, my sisters, and I would set off from Ghantakaran, where my Nana lived, and make our way down the hills through winding roads, fields, and temple paths to our native village, Bin.

Back then, distances felt shorter, summers felt endless, and life moved at the pace of our footsteps.

We walked everywhere. To school if we missed the bus or the Shaktimaan. To temples. To relatives’ homes. To places that seemed ordinary then, but have now become treasures in memory.

Forty-three years have passed…

The little girl is gone. Her parents are older. The relatives who once seemed larger than life now walk more slowly. Time has quietly rearranged everyone.

And yet, the moment I returned, my childhood came rushing back—as if it had only been waiting around the next bend in the road.

The family wedding I attended carried the same simplicity I remember from village celebrations long ago—people helping one another, laughter shared freely, no grand performances, just togetherness.

It reminded me that some things survive the passage of time.

No matter where life takes us—across cities, across countries, even across oceans to visit our children—there remains one place that still feels like the beginning of the story.

A hometown.

A place where the roads remember your footsteps, even when you have almost forgotten them yourself.

And for a few precious days, I was not a surgeon, a mother, or a woman in her fifties.

I was simply that little girl again, hopping down a hill in white canvas shoes, believing the road would go on forever.

— Suvi’s Scribbles..