Personal Narrative: My Last Day In India

I flew across the rocky blue Arabian Sea on flight AI1010 to America. With a new home and husband awaiting me, a new world ahead stuck on this huge metal plane, I feel so distant from everything I once knew. After spending the last six weeks with my husband’s brother and his wife in their home; cooking, cleaning and serving tea and sweets to guests, my nights leading up to this day have been spent tossing and turning at the thought of my parents being so distant and my new life so near.
My last day in India was spent packing, making sure nothing was left behind and at dinner with my husband’s family and my mother and father. I was gifted with a beautiful new sari; bright and yellow with gems and sequins that sparkled in the sunlight. And from my mother and father three new gold bracelets.
‘To remind you of us’, father had said. Mother did not speak, but stared at me for a long time. ‘I will visit. We will see each other again very soon.’
She did not smile at me, but pulled me to her. I could feel her inhale against my neck, and could smell the oils in her hair.
That night was sleepless, like the nights previous to

When I opened the front door and got a look inside, the little home with a few roses out the front had no life inside. It was a blank canvas. A few pieces of wooden furniture were inside but the walls were grey. It was cold, and new.
This afternoon my husband and I went around to the corner store and purchased a few ingredients for dinner. It was strange not going to the markets I was use to. While he was off collecting ingredients for our curry I was able to sneak away and find a beautiful red table cloth and a potato peeler. Our blank canvas needed a beginning. I laid out the table cloth on our dining table before dinner. For dinner we had curry, it reminded me of India, we sat and ate at our dining table with the new red table cloth but it was silent. We sat and ate in