I wrote the final/certification test for the Analytics course yesterday.

Free at last. Cutting down on my usual dosage of movies, music, guitar, books and blogging for three whole months was the hardest thing.

After all those years in schools and colleges, after the experiences of working in different teams/companies, I believe that there are only two subjects that really really matter - Mathematics and English. Not an "or" but an "AND". You know these two well, you will be okay. Unless you are very sure that you are creative with a capital C, study maths till your 10+2. You can learn anything after that.

Will be going home for about 3 weeks. If I take out the 20-22 hours I was at home in 2006, I'm going home after 9 years. And this is gonna be my first winter vacation after the winter of 1993

This time I can truly say that I don't know where home is. Mom & dad had sold our house and moved to something smaller, somewhere farther from the main city area. Maybe, if I have time and the guts, I will go and have a look at the old house.

There was this small garden in front of the house. We used to call it mom's garden or mom's flowers. Her favorite was roses and there were a variety of them - red, pink, white and yellow. And she was the only one who took care of these flowers. After all these years, I wonder if she has ever received a flower from dad, or any man for that matter. Has any man ever looked at her the way she looked at all those roses?

Just after the garden, was this big door with wooden frames. The top part is a big arch made from one huge block of wood. My eldest brother wanted to join 2-3 separate parts but dad wanted the arch to be carved from a single block of wood. An expensive decision but dad was rich then, we were rich then.

One wayward son, and all the money went down in the gutters. I guess there is Karma after all, except for the financial support dad had never shown much love and care for us, it was especially bad for my two eldest brothers and one elder sister. He was just too busy with his work, drinks, and the other woman. I still say dad's one lucky guy, just one black sheep among seven children.

And on the first floor, the north side of the house was my room. I shared it with my elder bro for years. We studied, fought, played and slept in that room till both of us had to leave home for our studies. On the wall near my bed were two big posters of Deep Purple and Axl Rose. On the opposite wall, near my brother's bed were pictures of a scantily clad Kalpana something, the first woman lawyer who appeared topless in Debonair. Those were the last pictures/posters I remember before my brother left for Sanawar (Himachal Pradesh) in 1989, and I left for New Delhi in 1993.

And that small wooden cupboard next to our room where we kept all our DC, Indrajal, and Tinkle comics along with the Hardy Boys, a few Enid Blytons and various other books.

Maybe I will not go at all. Mom told me that the house has been converted into a printing press by the new owner.

Hope winter waits for me back home. I wanna wake up to cold misty mornings, sip a cup of hot lemon tea and gaze and gaze at the grass, trees and all the greenery. I wanna sit with my parents and have a conversation with them in total silence. I wanna sit near a bonfire and watch the stars in the clear night sky. You really miss the stars when you live in the big cities.

I want to feel something for the place I left 15 years back. I want a place I can call home and feel it too.