HOMECOMING

"As per a line in Rabindranath Tagore's short story, Atithi: 'In a cloudy monsoon night, before love and emotional ties could encircle him completely, this Brahmin boy, thief of all hearts in the village, had returned to the unconstraining, unemotional arms of his mother Earth.' But this time, Tarapada did not run, because he had run enough. Instead, he ran back to the chaotic warmth that had made him feel at home over two years, after too many cloudy nights when his heart felt like a stone resting over a river trying to flow freely. He finally understood that a sunflower cannot live without its sun, and perhaps he could not live without his. So, for once, Tarapada chose not to wander. He chose to stay."

~her

I never really believed in teenage love. Well, I had already been in relationship(s), got cheated on and was carrying this wound that I didn't actually know how to explain. Trust didn't come easy to me, and I started questioning if it ever would. I thought teenage love was nothing but a trap. It's beautiful enough to make you think it's eternal, but frail enough to break the moment real life starts. I had almost given up on understanding what love really is. Then, on the 25th of July, 2024, I met a random girl at Auxi MUN. She was representing Norway, and I was representing the United Kingdom. She was probably just another delegate I had met at a conference. I had no idea that this girl would one day become a big part of my life. We became friends, and somewhere between conversations, jokes and endless stories, she became someone I actually looked forward to talking to. She was amazing, caring, sweet, cute, incredibly funny and, without a doubt, one of the biggest yappers I have ever met. Somehow, I never grew tired of listening to her. She somehow had this ability to make the average day extraordinary. In a world where things were so hectic, she always was my haven.

What she probably never knew was that I actually needed a haven. I was still hurting from the incident before I met her. She never promised anything, and she never had to. She just stayed. She helped me realise, through our talks, jokes, little acts of kindness and endless conversations, that not everyone who gets close to you is here to hurt you. She never took away the incident, but she helped me stop letting my past define who I could trust in the future.

Eventually, I realised that I actually liked her. Then I found out that she was committed. It hurt, but she had done nothing wrong, and I respected that and stayed her friend. Looking back, I guess that was my first real lesson in love. Sometimes, loving someone is accepting that you may not be able to have them all to yourself.

Our friendship grew. We attended events, went to MUNs, and made memories upon memories without ever knowing how important they would come to be. When my dad was hospitalised during my board exams, she was one of my biggest supports. During one of the cloudiest times in my life, she was there. She listened and stayed with me. She could not control what was happening, but she made everything a little easier to handle. Nobody can ever thank her enough for what she did for me during that time. And somehow, along the way, she became someone I could depend on.

Time went by, and I became committed to someone too, but somehow, our emotional bond never broke, and after my breakup, we grew even closer. We kept talking, getting to know each other and eventually became an ever-growing part of each other's lives. There was no sudden turning point where everything changed. Hundreds of little moments added up, and neither of us ever knew that someday, none of those little moments would have mattered.

Then came JU MUN 2026.

Those three days at JU completely redefined my relationship with her. We were incredibly close, and somehow, I felt myself falling for her harder than ever. I found myself appreciating the little things again. I remember watching her walk away from me almost like a penguin and somehow finding myself running after her. It was silly, it was ordinary, but it somehow was one of the sweetest memories I have. By then, I knew I had fell for her. I just didn't know if my feelings would ever be returned.

Soon enough, I heard that she had gone through a breakup too. It wasn't the signal for anything, but I learned that some signals just take time to come. Then came the 21st of May, 2026. An emotional conversation slowly turned into a confession. She told me that she had had a crush for almost two years, since the time of Auxi MUN.

Two years.

The same two years during which I had pondered if my feelings had been one-sided. It suddenly all made sense. The little things, the conversations, the feeling of being close and all those memories somehow fit together perfectly. The girl I thought I had quietly fallen for had apparently had feelings for me the whole time.

It was then that I realised that sometimes life doesn't say "no". Sometimes, it just says "not yet". Maybe we needed those two years to grow, to explore life, to know ourselves and to become ready for the person we were bound to be with. The friendship was not a detour from the love story; it was the love story. It was the foundation of it all.

Today, I am dating her, and I'm genuinely happy. Not because everything is perfect, but because our love story is set upon something greater than a sudden feeling. It is set upon friendship, upon trust, upon memories, upon countless conversations and two years of knowing each other. Somewhere in the process of falling apart during my teenage years, I found my smile again. She didn't save me, but she was part of my healing. She reminded me that just because I got hurt once does not mean I will always be hurt for the rest of my life.

From the 25th of July, 2024, to the 21st of May, 2026, almost two years had passed. And I wouldn't change a single day. Every conversation, every MUN conference, every hard time and every little memory was worth it. I used to think teenage love was a trap. I think maybe the real trap was thinking that everything beautiful should happen fast. Some stories need time. Some people need time. Some feelings need two years of knowing someone before they can finally find the courage to tell them.

Maybe I was never meant to keep on wandering like Tarapada. Maybe I was just meant to find where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Maybe after all the chaos, heartbreak and uncertainty, I finally found my sun.

And now, there is only one question left for the readers...

If I am Tarapada, then who is my Charu?