Home, as we learnt growing up, were the many walls that quietly watched us muddle through our years. As a wide-eyed baby (I don’t know about your baby eyes, but my mom tells me I had big curious bambi eyes the day I was born. Everyone takes her word for it. Period.), then a piffling toddler with a whole universe of her mom’s, dad’s and great grandmother’s stories swirling about in a teeny tiny brain, as a bushy tailed school kid that brought home countless awards, an unruly tweenager, even surlier teenager. There were many walls, but they constantly changed; many people and they constantly drifted in and out. So, what is home? To me?
Right now, I have a room that blissfully awaits me at my parents’ home in Bengaluru whenever I choose to return. It has all my precious childhood trinkets safely tucked away in the attic and in my clunky red trunk. There is no greater comfort than lying on my own bed at home staring listlessly at the ceiling fan whirling around. The comfort, the familiar scents, the quiet breeze by the window that makes my dull green curtains gently sway, my teak wood table covered in pokemon tattoos that came with puffy bags of Cheetos, well... that’s bliss. Even though I love my little room, I choose to return to that room only when I am on a holiday, rarely for an occasion, or when I have nowhere else to be. So, that doesn’t quite define the entirety of the word ‘home.’
As a young me frolicked about in the Elliot’s beach in Chennai, nagging my father for an ice cream cone as the salty wind whipped through my hair making it messier by every passing second, I never imagined I would someday wonder about the meaning of the word “home” and be drawn to that memory. We moved houses more often than necessary; I was too young to ask about the reason. In fact, I liked carefully packing my little trinkets (mostly dolls and books) and finding them brand new nooks in our new home.
I had all the creature comforts, my familiar trinkets, my perfectly loud and charmingly functional family but it still never captured the true essence of the word ‘home.’ Growing up, I felt at home in all sorts of places- the top bunk in a train that blasted cold air on my face as I struggled to balance a book, the many many hostels and PGs’ that I lived in across the country, hotels with majestic views that made me bawl happy tears, a flower meadow with a little gurgling brook in Pandu Ropa, parched desert that put me to sleep in Jaisalmer, even one of my friend’s home in Balussery that I stayed in for a couple of very memorable days.
I felt at home – I was comfortable, I felt safe, I loved the people around me, I loved the food, what’s more to love? Home became all of this and more, literally anywhere and everywhere all at once. Believe it or not, travelling was love at first sight for me, brought about by a crowing rooster in a jam-packed train that chugged me to an unlikely destination. For the curious few, here is the story of my travel bug.
Comments