Home

My grandfather was a refugee. One morning, some sixty years ago, he had waken up to learn that his country wasn't his any more. His family was one of millions that became homeless during the chaos that ensued the partition of the former British India. Through years of struggle, he did re-establish himself in a land that was new to him. Starting from scratch, he got a job and earned a name for himself in his professional career, but the wounds of being severed from home were too deep to ever heal completely. He didn't dislike his later residences; in fact he loved them; but that special spot in his heart was always reserved for a place he was never able to return to. Never was he tired of narrating the same old stories of the hamlet where he grew up, of those coconut trees, those lakes and woods, and the people whose lives revolved around his own. That quaint little neighbourhood wasn't his country anymore, but it still was where his home was, and it was the place he wanted to go back to. Always.

It's hard to fix a definition for the word 'home'. Perhaps it suffices to say that it's the place one feels sad to leave and where one wants to go back to, again and again, from anywhere else. After a long journey, or after a day's work, or simply, when one feels like. To a person, it could mean an apartment, a house, a neighbourhood, or even a city; depending on her perspective. However, it's not a place or a house alone that makes a home. The sights, sounds, smells and perceptions that one associates with the place are also a part of it. It's not just another point on the earth's crust with a fixed longitude and latitude, but a place that emerges beyond its spatial existance onto a level where it can be connected to with feeling and nostalgia.

That is not to say that the spatial aspects or the building is insignificant. They have their own place. They constitute the skeleton; a foundation on which the other, less tangible entities weave enchanting patterns of memory. Each room in the house, in fact each spot in each room has its own special place. You remember the slippery floor where you slipped and fell when you were a kid, the flight of stairs where you had once overstepped, the dining room where the family would gather every night, the lawn chair on the balcony where you would sit and watch the birds and the passers-by; the cosy little corner in your room where you would log in to your first computer.

People, of course, are an integral part of it. The warmth that one associates with a home generally oozes from the people who stay, or have stayed in and around that place. Memories that we cherish and that often make us homesick, also are woven around the same people; people we love, people we feel a strong connection to, people we long to see again.

There are other aspects of it as well. Little things we seldom pay attention to show their worth by creating indelible impressions on the mind. These impressions reflect prominently when one's away. When I think of home, among other people and things, I also think of the random strangers who would walk across the street and whom one could watch from our balcony; stray cats that would wander about in the nighbourhood, street dogs that would whine in the middle of the night, crows that would meet for their daily congregation at our terrace every afternoon, and the tree next to my window that would burst into a revolution of red blossoms every spring. None of these seemed to be of any significant importance when they were around me, and yet, they probably were, for they had made their presence felt.

And then there are things I would do when at home, and that I miss when I'm away. Reading the local newspaper in the morning while relishing a cup of the most refreshing tea, or taking those exciting auto-rickshaw rides across the city through peak traffic; or getting drenched in the monsoon downpours when umbrellas just don’t work; or jostling with sweaty crowds on a packed up minibus; or getting enchanted by the mystifying glow of the setting sun on a rain-soaked evening are just some of them. Oddly enough, I even miss the frequent power-cuts at the peak of summer, the intense heat, the chaotic traffic and the noisy crowds. All of them combine to complete a collage that I call home. Some are a nuisance; but they are essential components nevertheless, for they too contribute to put all the colours to the image and to put all the notes to the sound.

All these things, parts of our memory: big , small, important, less important, tangible, abstract, intense, vague; come together to remind us of our home. And they call us to come back; luring us with glimpses of a familiar world.

However, while we find ourselves in a far away land, seperated by hundreds and thousands of miles from the domain of familiarity; at times we realize that home might not be as far as it seems. After all, it's the same blue sky, the same moon and stars, the same clouds, white and grey, and the same raindrops. People and objects are capable of creating a bond of a similar intensity, even if that's of a different kind. And then we realize that perhaps our home isn't limited to a fixed location. As we grow, and as we travel, our horizons expand, and our homes become larger. While for some of us, home remains a complex image from the past of a fixed place; for the rest, it changes. That doesn't mean that the earlier home loses its significance, it holds on to its special place eternally, but other places gradually are elevated to that level too.

Home, after all, is where we want to be; where we want to return to; and to which we could relate and connect to emotionally. It can be a single place, but it also can be more than one place if one feels equally at ease at all of them, and feels an equal sense of attachment to all of them. In a global society, where people often have to stay away from their original homes not because they were driven out by wars or partitions, but because they left deliberately to pursue career goals; it is natural to build a strong connection with the new surroundings. With time, the new place often grows on us. With all its little nuances that capture our perception, it, too, weaves a world of familiarity; and becomes our second home; not replacing the first by any means, but becoming as special.