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         17° F 
         (- 8° Centigrade) 
         Possibility of snow

Swathi looked at the computer monitor and muttered under her breath, 'This annoying Manchester weather!' She knit her brows and twisted her mouth, in indecision. She picked up her phone and made a quick call. At the end of it, she let out a sigh of relief. 'Thank God, no need to get out of my pajamas and no need to go out in this horrid weather.'

An hour later, Swathi still in her comfortable nightwear sat down with her laptop next to the wide window in her living room. It was a single bedroom apartment and Swathi loved the warmth and privacy it afforded her. With a piping hot cup of coffee, she spent the better half of her morning immersed in her work.

Swathi looked at the time. 'Time to cook myself something.' She paused to look outside. Tiny snowflakes were slowly making their way to the ground beneath her apartment. The roads interweaving the apartment blocks were bare, with neither a human nor a bird in sight. Everywhere, it seemed, silence reigned supreme. Swathi put her hand on her palm and closed her eyes. 

It was mid morning. The sun was burning hot when she stepped out of her threshold. As she walked out of her beautiful two-storied home, that was conspicuous in the small village dotted with tiny houses and huts, Swathi was greeted by two men going on a bullock cart. She smiled at them and got on her bicycle. She rode through the cramped by lanes of the neighbourhood and before long, she was in a muddy road that led away from her village towards the farmlands of her father.

Swathi breathed in the fresh air and felt rejuvenated, especially after staying for the last nine months in the confined spaces of her city hostel. She knew that her father would be in the mango grove at this time of the year. She cycled through the multitude of mango trees laden with the season's choicest fruit. She spotted her father talking with his workers. She got down the cycle and was about to walk towards him when one of the oldest farmhands in her father's employ greeted her with gusto. 'Amma, college ninchi vachava? Aagu,' he said and picked out a luscious mango from the bunch lying at his feet. 'Thanks, Ratnalu,' replied Swathi in English, taking it and getting a grin in return.

'Swathi!', her father called. She went to her father. For half an hour, father and daughter were engaged in deep conversation. 'Neeku yela anipiste ala, talli,' her father had said. Both of them went home on the cycle; Swathi enjoying the tangy taste of the mango in her hand.

Swathi opened her eyes. It had been a long journey, literally and figuratively. She had studied in a Telugu medium school. With her father's encouragement, she had finished her BTech degree, far away from her village. It was not what she had wanted. She had wanted to study in the nearby degree college and get married to someone from their neighbouring village. But her father had insisted that she would shine in Engineering, which she did.

Swathi's application for MS was accepted by quite a few colleges and a few months later, she had flown alone to the US, much to the amazement of her neighbours and family members. She had successfully completed her MS and had landed a good job after tinkering with several short term projects. 

In the beginning Swathi had missed her village. She had missed her parents. Gradually however she became accustomed to her busy life and she rarely thought about home. But today, as  she wistfully looked out of the window and watched the snow falling thick and fast, she wished she was once again in the hot sun, riding the cycle through her father's mango grove.