Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Coming Home

Where is home?
















Home is the land of yellow and black taxis.

Home is where the rickshaw wallas go by metre.

Home is the memory of cycling down hill in early winter mornings.

Home is throwing a tantrum as a child and leaving with your sibling in tow hoping to return and find jalebis waiting for you. (Like in the dhara oil ad)

Home is the artificial sandy beach of my polluted city.

Home is the flashing image of making sand castles on that beach with this boy.

Home is a father with a moustache and an electronics engineer for a mother who gave up everything to raise you.

Home is the thrill of defying parental authority.

Home is failing to defy the said authority.

Home is Nanaji's Sherlock Holmes stories.

Home is the awkward silences filled by the distant faint blabber of a television.

Home is where you devour prawns and sinful chocolate overload brownies.

Home is where the aunty jis of ONGC colony discuss the latest gossip brewing in the society while simultaneously having a discussion on how to make low fat halwa.

Home is singing the theme song of Psych every night at 11 pm with your brother.
Home is the racing heartbeats before an open house.

Home is where you make life decisions when stuck in a traffic jam.

Home is where you can whisper your secrets to the sea and smile gleefully when it rains in response to your queries.

Home is where you want the laughter and conversations to never end.

Home is making up ludicrous stories to escape paying extra charges for excess baggage at the airport. (Emotional or otherwise)

Home is where sweat trickles down your forehead as you exit the airport only to be surrounded by familiar faces and as your car passes the Parle G factory and the smell of these biscuits wafts in, it stirs in you something deep and inexplicable.

Home is waking up with a sudden jerk at 4 in the morning to scribble something down lest you lose the thought forever.

Is home the city I was born in? or the city of my origins? or the cities I was schooled in? Or the city I am living in currently?

Is it a city? A happy place? A state of mind?


Where is home?

4 comments:

  1. So relatable.

    You know I think it is a thing with us ONGC brethren. We keep shifting homes and so do our friends. I've always maintained that I wouldn't be HALF the person I am, had I remained in Bombay all my life. I think of each of them and till date cannot say, which one to call home. But that's the beauty no?

    Shitttyaaaa. This post me so nostalgic :'(
    Home is where all of the heart's fondest memories are.
    I know, sounds cheesy. WHATTODOMEN I AM HUNGRY.

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  2. I fully agree with you Elastic chuddy buddy.
    But the thing is the fondest memories cant be clearly compartmentalized according to which city these memories were formed in. And how do you prioritize? isnt a childhood memory as close to you as that of coming off age in two different cities?
    And is home a city? a happy place or a state of mind? (I think I shall add this to the post)

    Where or what is home?

    As always thanks for reading :) *big hug*

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  3. I had written a VERY similar post for Shantanu's website (which will hopefully go up by the 1st of May).
    True story my Big-D frand... I always maintain that each and every city that I've lived in has had a profound influence on my life and who I am today.
    SO. For me, Home is where I live at the moment. NO matter how fleetingly.

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  4. you have a very nice blog here :D ..real nice writing :) home is where the heart is ;) home is where you go when evrything is wrong and then suddenly it just turns right ! :)

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