My sister is currently visiting India and she and my parents are spending the weekend with my grandmother in Pune. My mum sent a text saying they were all missing me, which made me almost tear up.
The other day, I was having a conversation with a friend about the idea of Home and I was telling her that I don't easily get attached to places. India will always be home, but that doesn't mean I want to live there. I feel little attachment towards Thane (Mumbai), the city where I grew up in and where I have spent most of my life. I had a great time in Chennai and The Hague, but that is more down to the courses I was studying and my classmates rather than the cities themselves. I am pretty sure I wouldn't particularly enjoy living in either city otherwise.
Liking a place is more than about the liking your job or university or the people around you in that place. It is the physical space, the weather, the public, society, politics and culture, and it is something more. It is a feeling of belonging, a sense of harmony with the place. I have never felt like I have belonged anywhere and my attitudes towards places is similar to my attitudes towards groups.---I hold myself back, unwilling to give all of myself. But, if pressed, I would say Pune is where I feel like I most belong. I didn't spend a particularly happy period of my life there, but I still have affection for the city. Maybe because my grandparents, and now my grandmother, have lived in the same house in Pune since I was a few months old, so I have strong roots there and a truckload of memories. But, I just find it a more gentler and easygoing city than Mumbai, and with a more expansive sense of space. After college in Pune and Chennai and a brief stay in Delhi for work, I moved back to Mumbai in early 2009 and lived there till 2014. But, while my career flourished in Mumbai, I always knew that it was a temporary halt, a place to rest before I moved on. Never say never, but I think it is extremely unlikely that I will ever live there, not least because it doesn't have many opportunities for someone in my current career.
Another characteristic of Home is its the place you run to to seek refuge when the shit hits the fan. Of course, you could argue that that is Family, but the place itself can have a comforting effect. Last year, when the dark clouds seemed impenetrable, I ran back to Mumbai to heal and convalesce. While it didn't seem like the city had a comforting effect on me at that time, it does now. And, it was important for me to come home to heal. I don't think I could have worked through my problems anywhere else.
The other day, I was having a conversation with a friend about the idea of Home and I was telling her that I don't easily get attached to places. India will always be home, but that doesn't mean I want to live there. I feel little attachment towards Thane (Mumbai), the city where I grew up in and where I have spent most of my life. I had a great time in Chennai and The Hague, but that is more down to the courses I was studying and my classmates rather than the cities themselves. I am pretty sure I wouldn't particularly enjoy living in either city otherwise.
Liking a place is more than about the liking your job or university or the people around you in that place. It is the physical space, the weather, the public, society, politics and culture, and it is something more. It is a feeling of belonging, a sense of harmony with the place. I have never felt like I have belonged anywhere and my attitudes towards places is similar to my attitudes towards groups.---I hold myself back, unwilling to give all of myself. But, if pressed, I would say Pune is where I feel like I most belong. I didn't spend a particularly happy period of my life there, but I still have affection for the city. Maybe because my grandparents, and now my grandmother, have lived in the same house in Pune since I was a few months old, so I have strong roots there and a truckload of memories. But, I just find it a more gentler and easygoing city than Mumbai, and with a more expansive sense of space. After college in Pune and Chennai and a brief stay in Delhi for work, I moved back to Mumbai in early 2009 and lived there till 2014. But, while my career flourished in Mumbai, I always knew that it was a temporary halt, a place to rest before I moved on. Never say never, but I think it is extremely unlikely that I will ever live there, not least because it doesn't have many opportunities for someone in my current career.
Another characteristic of Home is its the place you run to to seek refuge when the shit hits the fan. Of course, you could argue that that is Family, but the place itself can have a comforting effect. Last year, when the dark clouds seemed impenetrable, I ran back to Mumbai to heal and convalesce. While it didn't seem like the city had a comforting effect on me at that time, it does now. And, it was important for me to come home to heal. I don't think I could have worked through my problems anywhere else.
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