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A movie that I have been obsessed with and really liked recently, made me fall in love with a dialogue:

Mujhe bahut time lag Gaya ye samajhne mein ki Ghar koi jagah Nahi ek insaan bhi ho Sakta hai

As I mulled over this thought, it quickly became clear to me how true it is for me. How it defines me in a sense.

There are those I know that connect with places, be it for the nature or the beauty. I am not one such person any which way I look at it.

A building means nothing to me if it doesn’t have my people in it or memories of my people attached to it. This is why my graduation college will hold no memories for me. I stayed in the same two buildings for a span of 5 years and yet there is no attachment to that place. I did not find my people or take the time to build relationships there.

Finding the right person(s) is what has made my MBA college a place I will miss and think of. It will not be the hostel that has been given this meaning for me but rather the places around college. These 2 years have given me a few “homes” in Pune.

I think I should take this chance to answer what many have asked me. Those around often wonder why I choose to rush to NCR to my family at the shortest plausible chance. Why, when given a choice between exploring new places or doing new things and heading to meet my family and friends in Noida, I will always choose the latter. I am content in the same place with my people no matter how often. It will always be the comfort of the home over anything else.

As I write this, I am sitting in one of my homes in Pune. And as this thought crosses my mind I make another slightly startling discovery about myself. Once the right people help me define a place as home, their absence doesn’t affect how I see the place when they aren’t around though I do miss them.

This is another question I have been asked. Does a place not lose its charm to me with too frequent a visit or changing paradigms of the place? And the fact is that it does not. For the place may have begun to be home due to certain people but now the dynamics of the place are less important than the feeling of it. The feeling of it being mine. The feeling that I am secure here.

I recently told a friend how my emotions are dictated less by conscious decisions and more by my gut feeling. Here too I see that in action. Home to me is a place where my heart and instinct are at peace.

I end with a hope that wherever you may be today or tomorrow, may you always be at home.