This story was first published in Kitaab Singapore's BEST ASIAN SHORT STORIES 2021. It is 2020, and the lockdown that has followed the outbreak of Covid is changing people's lives and plans. Shekhar Pant decides to return to his Himalayan village in Uttarakhand, India. He is returning after 35 years, having run away when he was a child due to difficult circumstances at home. This homecoming is filled with anticipation, and also some fear - he is the prodigal son who does not know what to expect on such a delayed return. THE WAY HOME is a story about Shekhar's reassessment and rediscovery of the idea of home. The individual journey is intertwined with the social complexities that exist in the changing landscape of these mountains, touching on the issues of out migration and more specifically the caste system that continues to be so deeply ingrained in the Indian social fabric.