Welcome home, maa
Chapter One
The immigration officer looked at her passport, then at her.
Then back at the passport.
"Sana Chatterjee?"
Sana nodded.
The man's eyes widened slightly.
"Any relation to Mr. Arindam Chatterjee?"
Of course.
No matter what country she lived in, no matter how many degrees she collected, no matter how many miles she put between herself and Delhi, she was always somebody's daughter first.
"He's my father."
The officer's face broke into a smile.
"A great man."
Sana returned a polite smile.
"Thank you."
The stamp landed on the passport with a loud thud.
"Welcome home."
Home.
The word followed her all the way to baggage claim.
---
The arrivals hall was exactly as chaotic as she remembered.
Children running in circles.
Relatives waving flowers.
Taxi drivers shouting over one another.
People crying.
People laughing.
People reuniting.
Delhi never did anything quietly.
The moment Sana stepped through the final gate, camera flashes erupted.
Wonderful.
Someone had leaked her flight details.
Again.
"Sana!"
"Miss Chatterjee!"
"Will you be entering politics?"
"Are you returning permanently?"
"Has your father announced a succession plan?"
She kept walking.
Years abroad had taught her one valuable skill.
Ignore reporters.
Then she saw him.
Standing beyond the crowd.
Tall.
Impeccably dressed.
Silver streaks in his hair.
A face every television channel in the country knew.
Arindam Chatterjee.
Former diplomat.
Cabinet minister.
National obsession.
Her father.
For a moment the noise disappeared.
Sana walked straight past the journalists.
Arindam opened his arms.
She hugged him tightly.
"Welcome home, ma."
The familiar scent of sandalwood and aftershave made her unexpectedly emotional.
She pulled away before he noticed.
"You've become thinner."
Sana groaned.
"You couldn't even wait thirty seconds."
"You have."
"I haven't."
"You have."
"You're impossible."
A smile appeared in his eyes.
"Your grandmother said the same thing."
---
The drive home felt strangely unreal.
Delhi had changed.
New roads.
New flyovers.
New skyscrapers.
But some things remained untouched.
Arindam still hated traffic.
Still insisted on sitting in the front seat.
Still corrected news anchors while watching television.
Still treated her as though she were fourteen.
"You should stay in India now."
Sana stared out the window.
"We discussed this."
"We discussed nothing. You ignored me."
"You wanted me to join politics."
"You say that as though it is a crime."
"It depends on the politician."
Arindam looked offended.
She grinned.
For the first time all day, he laughed.
---
The Chatterjee residence stood exactly as she remembered.
Large.
Elegant.
Old enough to have stories hidden inside its walls.
The front door flew open before they reached it.
"SANA!"
A blur of white cotton and silver hair appeared.
Her grandmother.
Kamala Chatterjee.
Eighty-one years old.
Still capable of terrifying cabinet ministers.
Still capable of reducing her son to silence with a single look.
Sana barely had time to drop her bag before Kamala pulled her into a fierce embrace.
"My child."
The words were soft.
Everything else about Kamala Chatterjee was not.
She stepped back and inspected Sana critically.
"You've lost weight."
Sana looked skyward.
"Why is everyone saying that?"
"Because it is true."
"It is not."
"It is."
Arindam nodded immediately.
Sana pointed accusingly at him.
"Traitor."
---
The laughter began before they even entered the living room.
Nandini.
Arindam's elder sister.
Professor of History.
Owner of the sharpest tongue in the family.
And beside her sat Madhurima, the younger sister, who was already wiping tears from her eyes.
"Oh, look at her," Madhurima said dramatically.
"She's all grown up."
"I am twenty-one."
"Exactly. Ancient."
Nandini snorted.
"Ignore her. She becomes emotional whenever someone returns from the grocery store."
The family dissolved into laughter.
Something loosened inside Sana's chest.
She hadn't realised how much she had missed this.
Not India.
Not Delhi.
Them.
The people who had picked up the pieces after everything fell apart.
---
That night, long after dinner ended, Sana unpacked alone.
The room looked almost untouched.
The same bookshelf.
The same desk.
The same balcony overlooking the garden.
She opened a drawer.
Inside lay a framed photograph.
Her breath caught.
A woman smiled back at her.
Dark eyes.
Confident posture.
Effortless elegance.
Sara.
Her mother.
Sana sat down on the edge of the bed.
There had been a time when photographs of Sara covered every room in the house.
Then came the investigations.
The accusations.
The television debates.
The headlines.
Slowly, the photographs disappeared.
Not because the family stopped loving her.
Because it hurt too much.
Sana turned the frame over.
A date was written in blue ink.
Delhi.
October 2009.
The day her parents first met.
A small smile touched her lips.
She knew the story.
Everyone in the family knew the story.
How a fifty-four-year-old diplomat who believed he was done with love met a forty-eight-year-old woman who had no intention of falling in love.
How both of them were wrong.
Outside, Delhi shimmered beneath the night sky.
Inside, seventeen years of memories waited patiently to be uncovered.
And it all began on an October evening in 2009.
