What is it like to return from travel to your home town after being away for many years?
“Do you have family there? Who are you seeing?” inquired my classmate as she drove me to the bus stop.
“No one, I just wanted to go and visit for a day or so,” I replied awkwardly. Justifying myself is often difficult, especially with parents breathing down my neck, calling every day to ask why I’m not already on my way back home.
They seemed not to really understand my need to go back; any white person would find it bizarre that, after leaving the UK just before I finished primary school, our first visit back was to see prospective universities. None of my brown relatives found anything strange about this, yet they would rant about how great the UK was when given the chance. It felt like they were faking, almost mocking my yearning to go back, and it made me feel alone in this experience. This isolation was slightly amplified as my voluntary chauffeur gave me a quizzical look before changing the subject.
I boarded the bus and prayed that I had the right cash to buy my ticket as the bus arrived. If I missed this ride then my whole travel plan would fall through. With the tight travel schedules I usually set, a slight anxiety is normal, but the older model, single-decker bus full of elderly folk gave me the feeling that I’d have to wait significantly longer for the next bus than I would for the next train from King’s Cross Station.
The noisy, grey city gradually gave way to green, rolling hills dotted with wind turbines. As a child I’d thought they looked so cool and that the old people complaining about how they ruin the landscape were out of their mind. Riding past them now, I understood what those people had meant (though I still thought the turbines looked sick). Green hills gave way to yellow fields crosshatched with power wires linking transmission towers the size of giants. I smiled to myself as we drove; I felt like a kid again, on one of our cross-country drives.
We passed my brother’s old school in a neighbouring town and I was filled with anticipation; we were almost there. A mere few minutes later we entered the old market town. Every landmark, every street, every shop widened the stupid grin on my face as we reached the middle of town and I alighted. Dumping my bags in my accommodation for the night, I set out to relive all my buried and forgotten childhood experiences, starting with the town centre.
It being a weeknight, the place was largely abandoned. The light grey clouds gave an empty, pathetic threat of rain, though that would have been preferable to the dead silence as I made my way through the centuries-old streets (all two of them). I looked for a place to eat; there were several pubs, a few Indian restaurants (which I actively avoided), and a takeaway shop, which had made my first-ever pineapple pizza. I went from pub to pub, realising that most were either low on food, or were only serving drinks as it was a game night.
The only people I saw were a group of young children playing football outside one pub while their mother watched, glancing inside at the game every now and then. I smiled; I love children, but I realised that a bearded Asian guy staring and smiling at children in public would not look too good, so I instead made my way to the edge of town, whither we would drive once a week in the early morning for swimming. It was on Wednesdays, if I recall correctly.
The flow of the Ancholme was barely audible; though in another context I could call it serene (and I tried to here), at the back of my mind it felt empty, lifeless, like there’s nothing to see here.
I reached the leisure centre where I had once dropped the rear reflector panel on my bike and forgotten it. I’d ridden back to look for it without telling anyone, before coming back empty-handed to an angry and extremely worried mother. That was the only time my mother ever slapped me. I half-jokingly searched for the reflector where I remember losing it a decade ago, before I noticed that there were security cameras all around. Initially trying to avoid the gaze of ‘the government,’ I was too uncomfortable being recorded to stay for long; a quick look around and I was back in town.
The game had heated up and there was faint chatter coming from the pubs as people eagerly waited for England to finally bring it home. I kept telling myself to go in, talk to someone, but whom could I talk to? It was a sea of red and white in there, and I glanced down at my blue shirt and grey trousers, keenly believing that it would just be weird if I tried to join in. These guys love football and beer; they’re in their element. I don’t drink and I hate watching sports. I stood still in the middle of the bricked road and pondered: what was I even doing here? Why can’t I be simple and carefree like these people? They don’t overthink; they aren’t scared to speak to strangers; they don’t wear blue on fucking game day.
At the back of my mind, another thought popped up: outside the Indian restaurants, I hadn’t seen a single non-white person. Maybe I take diversity in society for granted more than I thought, or maybe I was looking for an explanation for how lonely it was in the middle of the street, with a room bustling and bursting with life, merriment, and camaraderie mere feet away.
A woman was stood outside smoking and watching from outside as England scored, gaining an advantage. A man, presumably her husband, came up and started hammering his fists on the window as audible cheers erupted throughout the town. The pure ecstasy on his face made me smile a bit, before my imposter syndrome returned with a vengeance. I opted to get a takeaway and buy some junk food at Lidl, spending the night by myself in my accommodation.
Except for the lady in the takeaway shop and the accommodation manager, I had spoken to no one since arriving in town.
The next day, I retraced more steps. Making the journey from the school to the church, a significant endeavour to organise and make when I was younger, was in reality a matter of walking a few metres; the distance from my old house to Tesco’s was maybe one mile, much less than what I remembered. The physical buildings were also significantly smaller than how I’d previously thought of them, though I expected that. The difference was still shocking.
I went to my favourite Coopland’s where I would always order a chocolate eclair and a chocolate cornflake bird’s nest, the same as my brother. The smell, which triggered a feeling of blissful innocence, was also slightly greasy and a little nauseating; the Danish and eclair I ordered were both a bit sweet for my taste.
I ate while watching countless old people greet each other in the street. Where I would have been oblivious to them, or have jollily said hello to them as a child, now the first thought to pop into my head was, “The decisions we make in the process of plugging the labour shortage will have fundamental effects on our society.”
Where I wanted to appreciate the old architecture and the history of the town, the fact that ultimately there is no significant industry, and therefore no future here, was explicit and obnoxious in my brain. The children playing football outside the pub will move to the big cities for university, and only half of them (if that) will even bother coming back; all the jobs and amenities will gradually move away from small, scenic towns like this.
Examining these thoughts and this mentality at large, an uncomfortable truth gradually dawned on me: that I am not the person who wanted or needed to come back here. The 11-year-old Nikhil, thrust into a new culture and struggling to cope, missing the simple life he used to have, is long dead. The 15-year-old Nikhil, disillusioned and miserable, yearning for the happy childhood he once had, is long dead. I don’t miss home any more; I don’t fantasise about going back any more. Those dreams are gone; aged and forgotten until cynicism, pragmatism, and a shift in values rendered them obsolete before they could be fulfilled. I ultimately derived very little pleasure from my visit; I was too late.
As I rode the bus back to civilisation, my classmate’s words rang in my ear: “Who are you seeing there?” The answer is no one.
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