Home time! Four years since I left and as always, the excitement just grows. But my last visit was different with a handful of bittersweet realizations.
A timeline…
08:00 hours: Outside the railway station
To my horror, I blanked out and couldn’t place a key lane on my way home! Armed with determination to make up for the loss of that one name, I spoke in my very best Gujarati (local language) to showcase my diminishing authority over the city where I have spent about twenty years of my life. Assurance seeped in as I recalled every nook and crevice in the lanes around my home.
08:45 hours: My first peek
The sofa covers had been changed. The ceiling fan creaked more than usual. The potted plants had been rearranged. My steps faltered, albeit for barely a second. The easy familiarity that usually engulfs me was deferrred by that one second, yet I stubbornly refused to acknowledge the delay… But for how long??
13:00 hours: Post lunch “siesta”
I took it upon myself to clean the drawing and dining rooms. And hello smug realization! I could have done it blindfolded. My memory did not betray me – my fingers lovingly remembered every scratch and dent. I was humming and chatting with Dad as I have done a thousand times before. It was just another regular autumn cleaning to make Mom happy and earn brownie points.
17:00 hours: A ride to… forget?
As I rode my beloved scooter after almost six months, I was aghast that I had to open Google Maps. I could no longer place the cafe at its precise location. My mind was playing games. A lane brought memories of another hundreds of miles away. A building looked exactly like my old flat in Mumbai. A colored house transported me to a quaint one near my old institute in Goa. Was I disloyal and cheating on my city??
22:00 hours: The skirt quest!
Hunting for an old skirt made me stumble upon a big bunch of letters, photographs, hand-made greeting cards, love notes, embroidered handkerchiefs, school reports and old cassettes. A plate of onions kept distracting me as I went through every item, laughing over my effortlessly absurd past self. The diary entries (Man! We learn to bitch early!) and moments of “Oh! I had a crush on him??” were priceless. I ended up clinging to that faded piece of paper as if my whole life depended on it… Where is time travel when you need it the most??
02:00 hours: Panic Attack!!!
I belonged to this city. I knew it. I had proof and was woefully curled up in a nest of them – reports, photos, letters and books. I am NEVER EVER throwing them away; those old souvenirs made me and are invested deep inside me.
Though I was restless in those tearful thoughts, sleep eventually took over. The home sleep. The best’est’ and incomparable!
But! Where do I belong? Who am I? A Pseudo Gujju? A Neo Maharashtrian? A wanna-be Goan? My loyalties stand confused. Meanwhile, I was at peace. I was home. It felt good to be back home.
I am nowhere close to finding the answers – it is definitely more complex than home is where the heart is… Anyone feel the same? How do you deal with it? Have you made peace with this?
I feel the same when I go back home. Everything is so familiar yet I don’t feel as if I belong.
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I know right? It is so unreal at times!
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My husband has a travelling job, so it has been 10 years and 4 attempts to establish our roots at one place. But would we trade it? No. Just taking the best of what we get…
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I guess it is the only and the best option. Take the best and make the most of it!
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Brilliantly written!! I feel like that on the first day after even a 3 week outstation assignment! Can imagine what you must feel! This can be a script for a short film!
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Hehe 🙂 thank you !
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are we more than location? our home town will always have that place…its funny, when i have been away for a bit i come home and things have changed…places i used to go gone…new lights…new roads…cool though at home you fit right back in with your dad…
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Perhaps we will never really know. But either way it is beautiful 🙂 thanks for commenting Brian! Came up with a poem for one of the places mentioned here
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I know the feeling! Except that I no longer have a “family home” to go back to: since I “abandoned” them, my parents have long since moved, and moved on!
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Our family home is where we want it to be. We make it with the people we love. My best wishes to you Janelle. Happy Holidays
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I recently did a Europe/England trip and I went back to the little village I lived in. I felt very similar, it was very odd to see the place after 10 years. It was wierd though, the village hadn’t really changed at all, it was me – I was seeing it through different eyes. I loved this post! 🙂
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You have a brilliant point here. Maybe it is because we have changed so much.. we see things so differently!
Thanks a lot 🙂
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It’s an interesting phenomenon, no? You feel when you leave a place that you don’t change, but in fact everything changes. Friends move on with their friendships, new buildings spring up, roads look different, and we are changed too. I share your quest for what it is that is the essence of home. You raise such interesting questions, Prajakta.
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Thank you Asha for sharing your thoughts. When we move on, we overlook the fact that so do others. We can’t expect them to keep waiting. Just trying to make peace now.
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“trying to make peace” — yes, that’s it exactly! What a good way to think of it.
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It’s the little things that disorient us. I remember having a weeping meltdown one Christmas because I’d asked my parents if anything changed, they said no, and when I got there the road (formerly dirt) had been paved. It seems like that’s something you would have noticed, Mom and Dad….
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Thank you… I totally get you. I almost threw a fit when I saw renovations to the hall opposite my place… why wasn’t I told!
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Ooh I love going through old photos, old clothes, digging inside drawers and wardrobes when I go home. Old books, old letters, old collectibles, etc…nostalgia is a bitch when you are so far…But when you go home I can’t wait to delve deep into these memories and get carried away for hours unknown….
Lovely post as usual 🙂
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Thank you Chai 🙂 You are so right, those hours race by catching us totally unaware.
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And..yes..untold renovations do hurt me too..
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You have penned your thoughts beautifully prajakta, could relate to each bit of it 🙂
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Thank you for stopping by Samruddhi! Glad you could relate 🙂
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Fascinating expression of a daily event and struggle.Thank you so much for visiting my blog.Hope your new year be happy and blessed.Jalal
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Thank you Jalal 🙂 Have a great year ahead!
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[…] at dVerse should ask us to write poems on our beloved city when just the other day I wrote this post, expressing my confusion of where do I finally belong. So this was kind of perfect! […]
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A melancholic take on the prompt – saddens me. Well penned.
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I think you meant this for my dVerse link up? Thank you for commenting!
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