Creative Corner: Detour Home
A recurring feature exploring the intersection of creative writing, storytelling, and community.
Detour Home
It was in the creaky hallway
Of our rented two bedroom flat
That my brothers played cricket to entertain themselves
A makeshift setup involving bruised walls
And occasional fight and tears
My mom would try to log onto a conference call with her team in Palo Alto
in the family room where there was a dial up Internet connection
And my Dad would be at work setting up a corporate call center
Where everyone would call him "Sir" and "Boss"
even though he would insist over and over
You can just call me by my first name
”Okay, Sir, Yes Boss, Next time, Boss”
It was the flat where the three of us siblings packed into one bedroom
Three single beds, side by side
And listened to our three CDs on repeat
Spin Doctors, Puff Daddy, and Green Day
And when we got bored, we would watch Hindi movies in the theater
Only to come back to rehash the dance sequences
Using a chappal as a microphone and taking turns being the lead singerss
It was a simpler, humbler life without our Bay Area Americanized ways
My father had refused fancy digs despite my mother’s complaining
”He always has to have his Mahatma Gandhi-like principles,” she’d say
Occasionally a friend from the expat-packed private school
would invite us to the sprawling American Embassy where they had membership
Our mouths would water over imported Oreos and Doritos at the commissary
And our eyes would note polished men in suits who walked by lush swimming pools on their way to work
Sometimes we took pride in our pared down life
In this new home in New Delhi, India
A realization, even for us middle schoolers, that we didn’t actually need
fancy toys, new nail polish, Nintendo games sets, and Tommy Hilfiger shirts
And sometimes we lusted for the fancy expat life of our peers
With wealth dripping
Cell phones with unlimited texting and Limited 2 Outfits in their closets
It was in that special space
that the five of us learned to be together
Away from the dizzying pull of AIM
and long freeway commutes for my parents
A memory, a moment in time, a chapter
that changed us all forever
