Home Away From Home!!!

I have read many books and novels in which the phrase “home away from home” has come. I had always thought that I have never experienced that feeling and was wondering whether I will ever get that feeling.

For the past 5 days, I have got that feeling.

I am at the US right now studying at North Carolina State University. I had come down from India on august 20th itself to go to my aunts place at Atlanta. There they are a typical Indian tamil family. There all the time they speak tamil and every day its Indian food. This gave me the atmosphere of being at home. I was thinking all this will go off once I go to my apartments at my university.

I came to Raleigh (where my university is located) 5 days back. I was thinking I am going to feel lonely. To my surprise near my apartments itself there were many Indians who were very friendly. However there were two main reasons why I did not feel lonely.

One reason was that my roommates (3 of them) are such great guys to hang out with. Most of the time we are laughing our heads off at something or the other or cracking jokes and things like that. The 3 of them are so much fun that will not feel the time going.

Another reason is that there are 2 seniors who have helped us a lot once we got down at Raleigh-Arun and Srinath. They treated us almost like brothers and more than just some fellow Indian. In this time of the world where at times even friends think twice about helping friends, we were really amazed at the way those 2 guys helped us out and are still helping us out. Both of them advise us so much, help us out. Arun is one amazing guy though. He takes not only us but any fresher out for shopping for groceries or clothes or laptops. He lives near my house and it is his open invitation that anyone can come into his house at any time. Most of the time, excepting after 11 pm, there are atleast 6 to 10 guys in his house, either playing the PS2 or accessing his net or just sit there for chatting with the others. More than that he is such a lively person that most of the time he is cracking jokes and making other people laugh. We realized that there is no method from our side to pay them back for all their kindness they have done for us.
And as usual, there are some other benefits like staying up as much time as you want, having all the freedom in the house etc which I generally have at home are some of the other few factors.

So I realize that only because of people who are as great and kind hearted like Arun and Srinath, that people who come so very far away from their homes to study or work, feel that they are at a “home away from home” which is the exact feeling which I am having right now!!!