Home is Not Always Where the Heart is

It's happening in West Asia currently. But since time immemorial, we have read books and seen movies about people coming home from war and emotionally reuniting with their families and friends.

- Shampa Dhar-Kamath

The homecoming is always joyous and heralded by tears, hugs and outbursts of celebration. With reason. For the returnees as well as their families, the moment of reunion is a moment of unadulterated joy. Old memories come flooding in and everyone finds comfort in being back in the presence of someone they trust and love.

But homecomings are not all fictional, nor do they happen only to soldiers or prisoners of war. Everyone who's been away from home for a long, long time-be it to study or work-comes home. And it's not always easy. Reuniting with family or friends can be a mix of elation, nostalgia-and discomfort. Because the formal homecoming is only the start. That momentous event is often followed by a quieter, more arduous journey: the struggle for the returnee to readjust to normal life and for their family and friends to reconcile themselves to living with a person who is both intimately familiar and profoundly changed.