There was a time in college when I used to dread the h-word. As exam-fevers subsided and the excitement of break would inundate the campus, some well-intentioned friends would inevitably ask, “So Smita, when are you going home?” My skin would prickle, a shadow of sadness would flit cross my face. Recovery came quickly, however, and I would mask my disconcertedness with a series of rhetorical questions on the semantics of the word “home”, attempting to prove the complexity of a word that seemed so simple to some, yet bottomless, deep, unanswerable to me. Was it a place where you recognized every house for miles beyond your own? The place where your family and friends lived? The place where you first fell in love? The place where you loved the smell of the earth, knew the rhythm of life, and felt so completely you?
Home meant many things to me, yet no one place ever could fit the definition. Having moved around alot as a child and adolescent, each place was ‘home’ to me in its own way. I used to feel that my body had been dismembered, leaving parts of me in every place that I had ever lived in. What’s more, I realized that moving around so much had made travel an inseparable part of my life, and I began to travel even more. I enjoyed it -- still do! -- but wondered if there would ever be a place I could call home.
Gradually, it dawned upon me that moving around hadn't left me ‘incomplete’ or any the poorer. Instead, I realized that I had planted a tree in every place that I had lived in; a tree that could cast its protective branches and provide shelter whenever I chose to be there again. In short, it was not that I had “a home”, but that I had many.
Today, while zipping through the racks for a salwar kameez for an upcoming business trip, I picked up a suit, held it up, and my vision immediately fell upon a familiar face in front me. We stared at each other for a few long seconds, and I slowly ventured, “Meera, I can’t believe it’s you!” We were both stunned at inadvertenly running into each other, more than 7 years since we’d last met. Meera and I had been classmates and good friends in our Chennai high school, yet we had lost touch with each other after I moved away.
I was still reeling as I stumbled out of the shop. I know that there are few places in the world where this could have happened, where I could walk into a shop and chance upon someone who’d known me at a pivotal time in my life. It was a warm, comforting feeling. For the first time in a while, I felt like I was truly home.
Home meant many things to me, yet no one place ever could fit the definition. Having moved around alot as a child and adolescent, each place was ‘home’ to me in its own way. I used to feel that my body had been dismembered, leaving parts of me in every place that I had ever lived in. What’s more, I realized that moving around so much had made travel an inseparable part of my life, and I began to travel even more. I enjoyed it -- still do! -- but wondered if there would ever be a place I could call home.
Gradually, it dawned upon me that moving around hadn't left me ‘incomplete’ or any the poorer. Instead, I realized that I had planted a tree in every place that I had lived in; a tree that could cast its protective branches and provide shelter whenever I chose to be there again. In short, it was not that I had “a home”, but that I had many.
Today, while zipping through the racks for a salwar kameez for an upcoming business trip, I picked up a suit, held it up, and my vision immediately fell upon a familiar face in front me. We stared at each other for a few long seconds, and I slowly ventured, “Meera, I can’t believe it’s you!” We were both stunned at inadvertenly running into each other, more than 7 years since we’d last met. Meera and I had been classmates and good friends in our Chennai high school, yet we had lost touch with each other after I moved away.
I was still reeling as I stumbled out of the shop. I know that there are few places in the world where this could have happened, where I could walk into a shop and chance upon someone who’d known me at a pivotal time in my life. It was a warm, comforting feeling. For the first time in a while, I felt like I was truly home.
5 comments:
"Home" is a question I was struggling with as well, but I don't have the excuse of having travelled as extensively as you. I started a "Home Poem" pre-tsunami at PK's prompting, but wasn't able to complete it even after the resurrection of the Pondy Poetry Slam. I like your answer to the question. Mine will come out on the blog when the poem is done.
I grappled with much the same thing--I spent 12 years of my schooling in about 8 schools and almost as many cities. When I was young, I hated the constant moving, but have now become addicted to it. I recently moved to a different country with my better half (who has to put up with my nomadic gene!).
At 30, away from family and friends, my answer is simple (and sentimental): home is wherever my parents live currently.
My home is not a city or a house--not the house I and my husband own and love in Chennai, not the Mumbai that shaped me, not the Bangalore that I love nor the Middle East where I spent so much of my life--it's just the feeling of being with my parents.
I know this sounds cliched..... I've been married for over a year and been livin in the US for quite sometime now. But home..... is where I can lay my head down on my mother's lap and fall asleep, not having to worry about deadlines and deliveries.... wake up in the middle of the night and feel secure when you know the people u love most are beside you... Gawd, I miss home.......
Nice blog u got here btw. Keep writing.....
So, Like Parvati, there is a little bit of Smita all around ..
Home to me is that undefinable boundaryless space where contact with the Divine is made.
You flow through it and it flows through you.
Physically, I agree with you Smita .. everywhere I've been feels a little like home .. but nowhere has felt SO much like home than California. I love love love California.
thanks for the thoughtful comments, all! glad to know i'm not the only one with the hardwired 'nomadic gene' :)
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