Somewhere I Belong

A decade in this region. Is it home now?

I will be completing ten years of living in NCR in a few months’ time. This city or this region with blurred boundaries have now started to feel like home. It is the longest I have lived in any city. With dad being posted in different cities, we kept moving every few years with our bag and baggage. Graduation, higher studies and then work took me around the country. Home was always called wherever the parents were, whether the city felt like it or not.

To me it felt like a natural response until I met people who had spent their complete lives in the same city or had a single city as their home all their life. I was not aware of the emotion of calling one city my home. For us, finding a new neighbourhood, new go-to grocery shops, new tailor, new drycleaners, new salon, was a usual exercise every few years when we moved. In conversations about hometowns, I always had the least to offer.

I think, that somewhat made it easier to adapt in any city, where others struggled with homesickness. For me, homesickness was made of feelings of missing parents, sibling and home-made food. Descriptions of my room, my favourite places in the city were different at various stages of my life.

Slowly, the longing of being tethered to a city crept in.

Being here for ten years now, still sometimes leaves me wondering if this is where I belong. But something still feels missing I guess, because when people around me talk about yesteryears, my mind still wanders to different cities.

So where is home?

I know, people call many things their home.

Their house.

Their partner.

Their family.

Their friends.

Their city.

Their corner.

I think, apart from the people I love, a part of my home lives in all those cities I lived in, where a part of me still dwells.

Where, a part of me still remembers the samosa of that corner shop.

Or that Kala Jamun of the famous sweet shop.

Or that perfect tailor by the main road.

Or those ‘pani ke batashe’ at the second turn from the house.

Or that piece of ‘Baal Mithai’ that Papa used to get while returning from work.

Or may be the terrace where I first rode a bicycle.

Or the lanes of the colony where I found my best friend.

Or may be the city that witnessed me growing up.

Or may be this city where I am building the life of my dreams with my life partner.

Or may be some other city my future self would be calling home.

Or just maybe I can call all these cities my home and not just one. Because the address that kept changing with time changed me too.

Which city do you call home? Or have you been moving around as well?

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This blog is sprinting its way to the finish line with Piyush’s Plotters as part of The Blogchatter Half Marathon!

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