Returning to Your City After Five Years — ICSE Descriptive Essay

‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home’, said John Howard Payne. These words echoed in my ears as the aircraft touched down at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi. Hastily unbuckling my seat belt, I climbed down the stairs. This was the great moment I had been looking forward to, during the last five years of my stay in London, where I had gone for higher studies.

I was surprised by the efficiency shown by the airport authorities. The custom clearance took just ten minutes. Soon I walked out of the airport and was welcomed by my parents. After the usual pleasantries, I spoke to my brother and sister in Mumbai and Chennai on their mobile. It was indeed thrilling to experience the speedy progress made in telecommunication, in the last five years of my absence. Distance did not seem to matter any longer.

As the taxi sped towards my home in Gurgaon, a sleepy town on the outskirts of Delhi, I was pleasantly surprised to see the broad brightly lit roads with a number of flyovers. High rise buildings and Malls on both sides of the road made the city look like metros that I had seen abroad. We reached home in half an hour without facing any traffic jams, a normal feature in the past.

At home I found my old friends waiting for me. After the usual greetings, we decided to go out for dinner. Climbing into their shiny cars, that signified prosperity, we sped off to Hotel Holiday Inn. It was now past midnight, but even at this unearthly hour, the roads were alive with traffic flowing smoothly. The Disco ‘cellar’ at the hotel was overflowing with people enjoying themselves. I learnt from my friends that such places now abound in the city, thanks to the change in lifestyle and work culture of the people. The booming economy, and the BPO revolution, had indeed transformed my sleepy hometown into a growing metropolis. Celebrations over, we returned home at the break of dawn.

I was by now weary with sleep. Tossing and turning on my bed I could not but appreciate the spectacular changes that had taken place at home. Comforts that I was accustomed to, during my stay abroad, had also now become available here. I decided to stay back, never to return to the cold environs of London, before dozing off to sleep.