Come June every year and all of us are ready to pack our bags. Yes, its our annual holiday time with the schools announcing their summer holidays. Time to unwind ourselves. Time to explore new vistas.

Came june this year and our bags were packed for the summer holidays.To Shillong. The Scotland of the east. The rightful geographical sirname endearingly given to a hillstation endowed with high lands ,hills. mountains, pine trees, rarest of the orchids, clouds hanging at each corner of the hills and sometimes so low as if they'd want to touch us, and rains washing your soul to purity.

Shillong is located in the northeast corner of India .It is the capital city of the state of Meghalaya .It is a quaint place most probably you haven't heard of, but really one of the most beautiful hill stations I had visited in my life. And I was going back to the place of my childhood after a span of 25 years. Making the pilgrimage to my roots, my childhood, with my young 12 year old son.

As I got down from the Jet Airways flight at Guahati Gopinath Bardoloi Airport lot of memories, emotions crowded in one after another. About carefree days of childhood ,warm feelings about people I cared so much in the past and a want to know how they had been when I was not around and busy with life elsewhere. All of us leave a bit of us and forge through in life to meet new challenges, but the nostalgia of the past is still there, the love of the places ,the love of the people and for our near and dear ones, how ever far we may go. So here I was with a part of my dream with me in the form of my son to walk again the familiar roads I had walked in the past. In Shillong.

We drove through the rain clad hilly roads, a distance of 101 kms, to reach Shillong at nine at night. To the warm endearing arms of the city I cared for, and the city which always cared for me. Wherever and howsoever far we may go to, the place of our childhood would always beckon us to come. My journey for the moment was complete. I was complete, I was back, I was tracing the past. Gathering my reserves, my energies to again forge in with speed to the FUTURE.

Aryama Sanyal