The Homecoming

It’s been a while since I even tried writing something to add to my blog. I’ve actually missed our communication through my posts - your comments and my responses that happen over the first few days of posting, by which time all the readers have either read the piece or have forgotten about it. 

It’s not as if I’ve been really busy or really lazy or anything else of the sort. I just haven’t had anything I’ve been inspired to write about. No interesting memories that came to mind, no new adventures I could put into words that would make a for a good read. With the pandemic, hopefully behind us, I’ve been getting into the rhythm of travel again, which as always has been exhilarating but not something that resulted in stories that I particularly wanted to share. I will however, share a picture of Riddhi, the tigress who I was fortunate enough to spend about 20 minutes with in the jungles of Rajasthan. Definitely one of this year’s travel highlights.

Having lived in various places over the period of my life, I’ve written multiple posts about ‘home’, even though home is more than the building one lives in. Everyplace I’ve lived in has obviously been unique in many ways. And each time I’ve thought that this will be where I’ll live for the rest of my life, for some reason I move out and move in elsewhere. The joys of being single and weird!

A couple of days ago I started watching an Indian series that caught my attention and kept my interest (not a particularly easy thing - my ‘Continue Watching’ list is enormous). A short while back, as I was watching Episode 5, it struck me as to how many parallels the show had with me and my life. One of the characters is ‘Ratan’, another characters last name is ‘Sethi’, one of the characters used to live in Chicago, moved back to India and was running a cafe with a personality that is uncannily like mine (just from the scenes in the cafe). It kind of started making me feel like the writer of the show must be someone I've actually met. There are actually two writers, neither one has a name that sounds familiar. Of course I do meet a lot of people in the cafe and have had extended conversations with many, so who knows?

The protagonist of the series is a guy who lives in Bangalore (yup, Bangalore), loses his job and moves back to his parents home in Indore, where he plans to live until he finds another job. Coincidentally enough I’m headed to Indore on Friday. 

Without giving away too much, the story is about him returning home, adjusting to the family who he had been seeing barely for a week during the holidays over the years, not having the freedom that he had gotten used to and subsequently not just adjusting to the new way of life but preferring it to the alternative of another career in a bustling city like Bangalore. While I still have one last episode left to watch, I pretty much know where the show is headed.

Many of us feel like our lives are unique - at least I rarely come across anyone from my generation with a similar story as mine. However, I do come across a lot of younger folks who seem desperate to retire early and live a life that isn’t driven by their employment. Easier said than done when you have a family but I hope that at least some of them are able to do it. 

Although It’s been forever since I gave up my life in Chicago, I still get asked the question as to why I moved back. Earlier I would fumble through my response because you think that there isn’t one single reason but a host of them. Over time though, I’ve learned to tell them what the single most important reason for my being back was. It’s not as if I was unhappy in the US - I really had a great life but even after living there for 11 years, I realised that something very important was missing. 

More than anything else in the whole wide world, I missed that warm fuzzy feeling of being home. 

For those of you who watch Hindi shows, the one I’ve written about is called ‘Ghar Waapsi’ and can be viewed on Disney Hotstar. I just got done watching the final episode and am hoping that there will be another season. 

Where the Heart Was

I wrote this piece recently for a Writers group that I belong to. After some debate with myself, decided to share it with my world.

When I was just a little boy my parents moved into the apartment where I went on to spend seventeen years of my growing up life. With four older sisters, one of who got married when I was five, we were previously crammed into a modest two bedroom place of which I remember very little. My biggest memory of the older flat is running into our household help who was carrying a pot of hot water and having it spilled on me one morning. Something I would much rather forget.

The new apartment was large with four bedrooms, three baths, three balconies, a formal dining room and even a room for storing ’stuff’. The entire place had Italian tiles laid out on the floor which made it always look shiny and new. The bathrooms had granite walls and one of them was large enough to be a bedroom. Each time we had a new visitor, my dad would give them a tour of the 2400 square foot rental, with probably the same kind of pride as the owner.

It was always a very busy household with a revolving door of relatives who would come to stay for a while, whether it was for business or pleasure. Additionally there were friends of my sisters and mine that would drop by to hang out. I don’t think it was because of the apartment size - it was more because my mother was much more welcoming than the other mothers. The refrigerator was always packed with jugs full of summery drinks, refreshing lemonade, mango milk shake, bael sharbat etc., and varieties of sweets to satisfy a family of sugar lovers. A supply of snacks would keep coming from the kitchen, whenever there were people over, which was pretty much most of the time. A busy household it was for sure.

More than a hundred people were invited to my 10th birthday, which was celebrated right in that apartment. I had recently turned the corner from a long and serious illness and my parents were in the mood to party. The place was completely packed with people, an enormous cake had been ordered from my favorite bakery, Flury’s, and my bedspread was completely covered with presents. The excitement of opening those wrapped gifts, most of which were books, was the part I recollect most vividly. I also remember one of my uncles asking if it was my birthday or my wedding that was being celebrated!

In all the years that we lived there, my family saw both good times and rough times. Many years of affluence were followed by some years of struggle. We went from owning two cars, two drivers to using public transportation. Household help became minimal, the sister just older than me began working and I was tutoring school children while in college. I remember the stress that my parents were going through but I don’t remember us being unhappy. While eating at restaurants came to a stop, there was always food at the table. Looking back, I think it taught me many lessons that helped me get through life as a stronger person.

Over the course of my existence I’ve lived in eight different ‘homes’ but it’s the one I grew up in, the one in New Alipore, Calcutta, that must have made the biggest impact on me. I say ‘must have’ because that is the only place I dream about on a regular basis. Not the apartments I rented in Chicago, the house I owned in Naperville, Illinois, the pre-war apartment I loved in New York City or the penthouse that I’ve now rented out in Bangalore. It’s not as if I miss the place or even think about it, but more often than not, its the set for my dream theater.

Four years ago I went back to 617 ‘O’ Block, which is now occupied by a childhood friend and his family. The entire time that I was there I felt a strong sense of discomfort. I haven’t figured out if it was due to my friend intruding into my memories or if I still felt a sense of ownership for a space that was no longer mine. When they moved into the flat, they inherited a trunk with some possessions from our lives. Crazy about rock music from a very early age, there was a stack of LP records that I was so happy to see but had no clue what I could do with them. The biggest treasure in that trunk however, was a graduation photo of my mother, which I was sure had been lost.

Last year I passed by the building again but didn’t stop. The exteriors looked like they had been recently painted. I asked the taxi driver to slow down a little as I kept looking back until it was no longer in my line of vision. No there was no feeling of melancholy, no moistening of the eyes and no lump in the throat. That apartment was no longer home but it’s memories would be mine forever.

Someone I met recently asked where home was for me.

I thought about it for a second and replied, “it’s wherever I am at the moment”.