We are back in Mumbai, or as Jasper refers to it, our ‘India’ome’. Every day of our final week in Jersey he scoured the sky for jet trails (of which there are many, criss-crossing their way from Europe to the US and beyond), pointing and asking each time ‘Is that our aeroplane? Is that our aeroplane?’. And each time we left the house he would suggest, with his head cocked to one side and an eyebrow raised in his own unique and comically quizzical style of emphasis, ‘‘maybe we go to the airport now?’.
It would be safe to say that Jasper spent his last week in Jersey unbelievably excited to get back to his India’ome: to his friends and to his toys. Dylan, meanwhile, was counting down the remaining days using a calculation built around opportunities to gorge himself on beef-based foods and he left no meal behind.
I, not unlike Dylan, was trying to make the most of everything I knew I was going to miss once we returned to Mumbai. You know, obvious things like, being able to drink the tap water, and being able to leave the house without sweating through my clothes in a matter of seconds.
Things like
the supermarket,
the dawn chorus,
the light mornings,
the long evenings,
the fresh air,
the green lanes whose serenity is interrupted only by horse riders, tractors and the odd woofy dog protecting its master’s garden from behind a hedge,
my family (apologies - you maybe should have come higher in the list)
fresh seafood,
the supermarket,
the quiet,
the smell of cut grass,
the beach,
the ice cold, crystal clear sea water rippling like an artisanal, peppermint and lime jelly on a bed of Michelin-starred smooth sand,
the small town feel,
the island pride,
the planes in the sky,
birdsong,
red squirrels,
potatoes for sale on the side of the road (and Jersey Royals, no less),
potatoes dug up by Jasper straight from his Grandad's garden (with permission, and with some help, of course),
BBQs,
sandwiches,
picnics,
a fish’n’chip picnic by the beach,
it taking less than 20 minutes to reach a beach in any direction (25 with my poor navigational skills),
al fresco dining,
afternoon tea with old friends, and parents of old friends, and friends of parents of old friends,
wild flowers in the hedgerows - dandelions, daisies, buttercups, snowdrops and others whose names Jasper was eager to learn (‘rhododendron’ was undoubtedly his finest oral floral accomplishment),
ducks, horses and cows lazily observing us as we walked past their fields,
the hope of seeing that eccentric couple in their horse and cart casually trotting through the valley on a Saturday morning,
the fluidity of indoor-to-outdoor play made possible by not living 21 storeys up,
doing the gardening,
Jersey milk,
Jersey fudge,
honeyed banana chips (this one is a real head-scratcher considering India is the world’s largest producer of bananas but apparently nobody has ever thought to sweeten and dry them, preferring, instead, to use their surplus as a vessel for yet more chilli masala),
the concept of a high street,
the concept of a supermarket,
Boots (the chemist),
properly butchered meat,
ready made sausage rolls,
the wine selection in the supermarket,
the smell of flowers,
the smell of cow pats (dare I say it),
uninterrupted coastal vistas,
free, public toys to share on the beach,
charity shops full of barely used, hand-me-down toys,
fresh bread,
good bread,
hot cross buns - available year round,
clotted cream piled mountain high on a fruit scone and topped with strawberry jam,
the sound of children’s laughter at a public park,
beer gardens,
good beers to enjoy in the beer gardens,
playgrounds in pubs with good beer gardens and good beers,
playgrounds in general,
The Sheep Shed,
the clip clop of horses hooves,
the huoh-huoh of territorial seagulls,
the rush of the waves,
the crinkling of the pebbles disturbed by the outgoing tide,
pebble beaches,
sandy beaches,
beach cafes,
high tides,
low tides,
needing to check the tides before choosing a beach-based activity,
the meadows,
the woods,
the castles,
the feeling that I might recognise someone everywhere I go,
the complete lack of sales and marketing SMS-es on my mobile,
fresh produce - the fruit, the veg, the seafood,
the industrious ice cream van - in the same spot, come rain or shine,
a stranger foraging for dandelion leaves on the verge outside the house which he would later feed to his pet tortoise - Lucifer (true story),
the feeling of soft grass under my feet,
traffic laws and the sense that they are there to be obeyed (although the jury is still out on whether a speeding fine is headed my way for an accidental velocity surge in a 20 mile-an-hour zone),
and of course, the supermarket (or did I already mention that?)
But more than any of these things, what I am going to miss the most is the spontaneity we enjoyed in Jersey.
In Mumbai, it would take us a long time to prepare to be spontaneous. We would need to research our destination to ensure that we could make it there and back within a suitable window of time so as not to disrupt Jasper’s eating, sleeping or pooping schedule too much. And then we would need to schedule the driver with his local licence, his knowledge of which (if any) of the rumoured traffic rules it’s worth abiding by, his ability to know what does or doesn’t constitute a parking space, and his availability to sit with the car while we do whatever we have chosen to do. And then, if, on the day in question, we were all not sick and not required elsewhere, we would need to decide if it was indeed worth the hassle. Especially given that it would almost certainly only be us (Jasper, Dylan and me) hanging out with one another like normal, but in a new location, due to the limited number of people we know in Mumbai - all of whom would be performing a similar scheduling dance of their own.
In Jersey, however, everywhere can be reached, visited and returned from within an hour (or maybe ninety minutes if it’s particularly fun). I have a driver’s licence and (aforementioned possible pending speeding offence notwithstanding) an understanding of the traffic laws. What’s more, destinations almost always come with parking. In Jersey, Jasper’s wake-windows of ‘all morning’ and ‘afternoons after 3pm’ could be filled with adventure at the drop of a hat. We could deviate from the agenda and decide to dine out with a minute’s notice, safe in the knowledge that we could almost certainly sing a loud enough and convoluted enough version of Old McJasper had Wheels on his Bus all the way home to avoid his full belly sending him to sleep in the car. Plans could be adapted, detours added, and, most importantly, participants invited along the way: an auntie here, a grandfather there. Family members who were more than happy to meet their daily step count chasing after Jasper or to complete their upper body work-out indulging his insatiable appetite for swing-time. Sometimes, we would take Nana (my mother) up on the kind offer of stealing her car. Other times we would kidnap her and bring her along, forcing her to navigate, sing and eat ice cream from the ice cream van (not necessarily all at the same time).
For me, visiting Jersey will always be ‘going home’ - home home. When I was at university in the mainland (England), I would go ‘home’ from my lectures to whichever address housed my belongings that year, but I would go home home for the holidays. It was the same when I lived in London - home from work, home home to Jersey for a long weekend. And even after six years in Yangon where I was living as a fully subscribed adult with my husband and baby, I think I still considered Jersey as home home.
A visit to Jersey is always a trip down memory lane for me; a chance to see what’s changed and what hasn’t; a chance to remind myself of just how unique a set-up the island has with all its varied landscapes and activities in such close proximity to one another. But what I see very clearly now is that no matter how hard I try to share it with him, Jersey is not and will never be Jasper’s home. His home is where things are most familiar to him and right now, that is India.
The moment we drove out of the airport, after having spent some unfortunate extra minutes filling forms to help locate a missing suitcase, Jasper exclaimed ‘Oh! Too dark!’. I realised at that point that he had just gone six and a half weeks without ever seeing a night sky. The early sunrises and long evenings in Jersey meant that Jasper had been living in a world of eternal sunshine (and some clouds and rain, of course - Jersey is still under the jurisdiction of the British weather after all). ‘Look! The moon is awake!’ he continued, bouncing up and down on my lap and straining to touch the moon. ‘I so esscited!’ he bounced. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because the moon is awake!’ said Jasper. ‘It is a big ol’ moon’, I agreed. ‘It’s a big old moon,’ parroted Jasper. ‘And we back in our India’ome. With mama, and baba and Japper. We live in India.’
We finally walked through the door of our apartment at 2am, although our bodies were telling us it was only 9:30pm. Jasper went absolutely insane with excitement over being reunited with all his toys. He was little more than a flash of white hair running from room to room, corner to corner, shelf to shelf, picking everything up, looking at it, hugging it and shouting ‘I remember my toys! I remember my toys!’. It took us almost an hour to quieten and calm him down enough to agree that he would sleep first and then play with his toys in the morning. And true to his word, when he woke up the next morning, he nearly fell over himself scrambling to play with everything all at once. And then his nanny, Seema, arrived and he could hardly contain himself. ‘My Seema didi is here! My Seema didi is here! Look, mama, look, my Seema didi is here!’.
Seeing just how happy Jasper is to be back in India and understanding a little more now, why he was so homesick when we first arrived in Jersey, fills me with mixed emotions. I think I will always be a little sad that he isn’t as attached as I am to the place I have long considered home. I think I might be slightly envious of him being so happy here in India, because I am not yet at the stage of looking forward to coming back from a trip abroad. But above all, I realise that I am secretly proud that, despite it being quite foreign to us, Dylan and I have created a life in India that feels like a true home to Jasper.
"Oral floral accomplishment" is a gem; a great blog