Where everybody knows your name....

Recently, I went back home to Kolkata after 16 years. Yes, more than a decade. WHY? Well, for the lack of a better answer, I will say LIFE WHY ELSE?!
And I made some of the best memories of my life so far, with my dearest ones. Of course most of us have been in touch for most of these 16 years, even more so with instant messaging and internet finding their way into our lives.
But there were people I am guilty of having forgotten, those I remembered vaguely and just by their faces faded in my memories, people I remember only as part of our extended family. And yet, to my immense surprise, everyone of them remembered me by name...or maybe, just like me, they were trying to remember. Nevertheless it was the most warm & welcomed feeling I have ever experienced.
"It's you! You are all grown up!", "Do you remember me? You don't? Shame!", "Has it really been 16 years?", "Tutu is here!" "Come here, let's have look at you!" (sounds much better and more endearing in bengali)
It was by far one of the many amazingly wonderful parts of the trip. I mean, it makes sense, what the old theme song for a classic television show says, we all yearn for a place to go where everyone is always glad we came, a place where everybody knows our name.....