Home is a feeling.

A few decades ago, moving with bag and baggage to a different country or in a diverse nation like India even to a different city within the country was considered by most as a bold choice, not to made lightly but with resolve and a great conviction. Now though, as time has moved on and the world has shrunk, it is most common for children who are barely adults to move away from where they have grown up, to what I call their -“city of work” and like many others I had also crossed the length and breadth of our country to land in such a city, many moons ago.

Living here for many years now, we somehow still manage to look maybe too young or perhaps too awkward still, to prompt a very frequently asked question of “ where are you from, you know.. originally”. A question which has now become easy to ask but rather difficult to answer because as a married, grown up individual its not a one word answer anymore but rather an essay to narrate.

A home used to be just a structure of brick and mortar growing up, which was always just “there” and where you could go and come back from without it requiring air tickets and it being an event but more so  just a state of being.

The story gets confusing once you are an adult, tagging along a husband, a child maybe two for some, your home stops being a singular destination but rather a multiple layover journey involving more than one states but thankfully till now for me at least, only one country. Home has stopped being a particular place now and has morphed into a just an ephemeral feeling. A feeling of belongingness, of familiarity, of childhood, of youth and of memories. A feeling you try to find in the sensations and emotions brought on by your many families, from the food you know and eat, from the familiar sights you see and you know just by simply hitting pause to your hectic life and taking a breath.

As I come back to the house where I sit and write this, a house of our present, where every piece of furniture, every small spoon and every plant has been bought by us with thought, love and care. A house which not only showcases our blended personalities but is also our daughter’s first home. This house does not evoke many memories and does not carry any whiffs of the past but it provides us comfort in the everyday and enables us to build our future.

So to answer the question, where are your from, which essentially triggered this whole ramble. Honestly, I don’t know.. all I know is that I am privileged to have many homes which I call my own, and in all of them I am welcomed with warmth, kindness and love. The pithy answer would be, that I have a somewhat nomadic existence where I am going through the meandering turns of life, cushioned heavily with a loving family.