I remember being asked to write an essay arguing for or against “I want to live in Kharagpur forever” in my pre-board exams for ICSE. I was the only guy in the class to write for the case. I did give pretty cocky rhetoric, it seems, since I was awarded decent marks. Well the point is not that I wrote some piece and got appreciation. The point is that I still feel the same. I still don’t want to leave Kharagpur. But I have to. I have to because I have a career to take care of. In my school essay I talked about IIT, Workshop etc. But none of them now seem to be an option now. Someone will say why don’t you get into railway service. Well again for various reasons I won’t. When I wrote that essay, it was a bit of chauvinism that drove me. But now I realize that whatever reasons I gave then mean nothing to me now. I just want to be in Kharagpur because that’s where my home is. That’s where my soul gets the peace. That’s where I can rest in my mother’s lap. I never thought I would miss this place so much until I went to college. Four years of college, and I promise every day at college was just a countdown to that vacation for me. I used to think it was because of my friends. But now that all of them are gone I still find this place the same. Though I really miss our ‘Adda’. On a recent trip to Kolkata, one Bengali bhadrolok vented his anger over my friends’ taking considerable amount of seating space in local train by saying that “banglar jal kheye mota hoye geche”. Generally I would get angry when someone makes regionalist or racist comments but this time I didn’t. Since at least some part of it is correct. I find the water here sweeter than any other place. Even my ancestral place in Andhra Pradesh doesn’t give the solace that I get here. Its not because Bengal is great and Andhra is not. It’s because it will always be the place where I spent my formative years. I remember that feeling I had every time I came for vacation. Getting down from the train, a sense of “coming HOME” used to takeover me. It feels right to be here. But again I have to leave this place; I have a job to do. But still my wish remains…..”I want to live in Kharagpur forever”.