Yes, the air back home is not as clean. It reeks of all that it is not supposed to.

It carries the aroma of strongly brewed chai from across the neighbor's house to the streets filled with morning hustlers. The air soaks up more than just flavors from a freshly prepared curry to compete with the dabbawala (dabba is lingo for lunch box) to reach a son across the city. The smell that tells his 'special colleague' siting in the opposite desk what the guy cannot put into words.

The air back there beholds all the colors thrown out of joy and fervor-of someone's daughter getting married, of another bringing home a deity to worship, or just frolic in the name of Holi.

Seasons change here too and days roll by with leaves changing colors. But nothing can foretell the arrival of a dreamy monsoon, like the petrichor in one's own land.

The air back home is full of lingering dreams that eight eyes see through a 1BHK surpassing the bridge chasing the skyscrapers beyond it. The air back there stinks of promises- lost and mangled under the clutches of responsibilities. And even now that I'm a world away from my home, whenever a dabba unravels a familiar smell, it feels like a warm embrace from back home!