Whenever people ask me “where are you from?”, I feel a sense of unease that Henry Kissinger should have felt about his legacy. It’s not that I grew up—my childhood was imprisoned between Bombay and Manipal—or traveled all over the places—I’ve majorly lived in 5 cities and been to a grand total of two countries in total— but I reckon this particular question is rooted in one’s sense of identity. Isn’t it? It could be geographic or lingual or even cultural in essence. However, when you grow older and quite impatient (with yourself), you wonder if that question hides more than what it reveals.
Yes, I am referring to the age old notion of home.
Or to be more daring, the feeling of homefulness.
Which brings us to the holy grail of philosophy: what exactly is a home? Some of the greatest thinkers from the past greyed their beard mulling over this. You see, it’s not as straightforward as it appears. Your relationship with your house defines your bond with your home. A lot like a marriage where the couple are more in marriage than in love with each other. Just because you get to return to your address every sunset doesn’t mean that you’ve found what you are looking for. A home is a sensation that you want to hold onto because it takes you back to the safe confines of your childhood. Something you aspire to have but most probably, will never do.
So, is home a man-made structure that has a roof on top of it? Or does it have more to do with the people who inhabit this sacred space with you? People who are comfortable sharing your true self with? Or is it more granular than that? Or maybe it has nothing to do with a house at all? What if it is found in somebody’s warm neck or notch where you hide yourself from time to time? Or something that you seek in the company of your friends who laugh at all your jokes and make you feel like your existence matters?
When I was a little boy, I thought everyone lived like I did. It was much later—after a more regular interaction with television—that it became obvious that not everyone lives in a slum. We lived in a tin box till I turned 10. That was the year our house had walls for the first time. Because of that reason, to this day, I am fascinated by the smoothness of freshly painted walls. My nice dreams still feature the blue walls from 1996 and I can’t get rid of the smell (fragrance?) of that distemper. Fuck, I still vividly remember the Tamil-speaking men who not only built our house but also painted our walls.
Anyway, I digressed.
Which is interesting because we are (unwittingly) exploring the theory of ship of Theseus here. Without the walls, there can’t be a house. Let alone a home. If a house is something you build for someone you resent—well, not all masons are as jovial as the ones I recollect from my childhood in Cheeta Camp—a home is something you build with someone you love. And this unique space is where you are first introduced to your learnings of life. They say charity begins at home. I am not sure about that but empathy certainly begins outside of home.
Now that I am away from most of my loved ones, I think a lot about the compulsions of migration. Animals go through it and so do the birds and insects and fish. Everybody, from the tiniest of creatures to the largest of celestial bodies, are constantly on the move. Nobody is settled. None of them truly care about finding a place called home. Perhaps there's no such place as home. But then there's no place like prison either. Just a factor of one’s comprehension.
That said, once you find your home, don't stay away from it. At least not so long that you don't remember how a home feels like anymore. Dalai Lama once mentioned how he is forever indebted to India’s hospitality but he doesn’t really have a home. If someone with his wisdom feels this way, I think there is a lot to unfold here. This blogpost can’t possibly cover all the necessary aspects at once.
After all, just because somebody stayed at one address for the longest time, for whatever reason, doesn’t affirm their homefulness either. Which reminds me of zoos. If people stopped visiting zoos, would they transfer those animals back to wherever they came from? Ideally, they must, no?
Anyway, go home. Even if you don’t have one. Because you will find it the moment you stop looking for it.
A home is where you feel you belong. It’s your loved one that make you feel ‘at home’. If it’s empty we are “homeless”. Despite of the four walls
When I constantly live far away from loved ones and with no permanent "home" address, home, to me is my mindset. Home is the inner belonging. "Perhaps, there is no such place as home".