Yes, Homecoming !

Ranbir Laishram *

Yes, homecoming with a difference !
An unprecedented experience.
A lifetime memoir for the generation
Driven to the extreme by the CONTAGION.
Despair, frustration, starvation, discrimination
Ostracized aliens of the largest democracy.
Only the mind knows, and the heart feels
The journey endured is of perils.
A reunion of many known faces
Busy everydays segregated them for ages.
The long-awaited day has dawned
In the beautiful frontier, they showed.
The horrendous journey seeing its end
At the outskirts of their homeland.
After miles and miles of fatigue
Days after days of hopeful intrigue.
Only one hope in mind - "Home"
Only one destination to find - "HOME".
Alas! Halfway the road ahead
To their destination most beloved
Sternly greeted by stigma and suspicion
For they'd come from the land of the CONTAGION.
Short lived are their smiles frail
The next few weeks not a smooth sail.
Gone are those lovely homecomings!
Love and care and those merrymakings.
Now, a care with a difference!
Any reckless move awaited by an offence.
A different history of the young and the old
Time, destiny and the CONTAGION have told.
Written clearly in one's mind
Etched vividly in the anecdotes of mankind
The weeping story of our motherland
"COVID-19 PANDEMIC" - an epic, an apocalypse.
Social distancing, quarantine after quarantine -
Trending terms of the recent times.
Fear and hatred by some
Sympathy and compassion, they've abandoned.
Love and affection by kins
Forbidden by the CONTAGION like sins.
A heroic arduous journey ended safely
At the horizon of one's dreams slowly.
A Homecoming !
Meant to end in mirth and harmony
Denied and deprived by the CONTAGION uncanny.
What destiny has for one's tomorrow ,
Happiness, joy, grief or sorrow?
Only the Almighty, and RT-PCR knows
The chaos in mind, we all know.