Oddly at home

Feeling sudden hunger pangs a good four hours after my lunch, I rummaged around my drawers at work for something to munch on. I tried to ignore the signals my stomach was insistent on sending and concentrate on work instead. Twenty minutes later, I was taking the elevators down to the cafe to get a cup of hot cocoa. Waiting in line, I turned to the TV screen flashing breaking news on the Casey Anthony trial. Shaking my head, I handed over my card and asked for a cocoa and on an impulse grabbed an oatmeal raisin cookie as well.

The music on the overhead speakers changed and sounded hauntingly familiar. My brain connected the dots and I found myself smiling. Humming along, my fingers tapped out indistinctly on the glass housing that encased the baked goods. Less than a minute later, smile still firmly in place, I was striding back to my desk.

There was something oddly comforting about watching the breaking news and knowing what it was all about. Oddly comforting to hear strains of music and knowing who sang the song, what it was about, who the singer was. Then, I realized, it was the history. Not that moment or that song or that piece of news. It is the tenuous connection I had built with this world I inhabit now. Akin to standing at Raghavendra samosa stall knowing full well that the crispy delight would be accompanied by raw onion chutney or knowing just where I can find that particular shade of crimson red glass bangles in the whole of Madras. It is the history. Oddly comforting. And at home.

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