Hello Home!

This blog is a compilation of nostalgia, a walk down memory lane and a little bit of dreams. Dedicated to everyone who is away from their home and still close to it.

There is this abode of comfort where we have our messy chair with a pile of clothes, a wall full of posters, a kitchen that smells of your favourite tea brewing on rainy evenings, a reading spot where you sulk with a book or get lost in thoughts. There is a window that overlooks another balcony, a view you saw and day dreamed while studying for that test. There is a door knob only we recognise how to open, twist it a little to the right and there it goes, a door of nostalgia just swung open, didn't it?

Growing up in different parts of the country, I have lived in precisely 7 cities and 11 houses/rooms. This place called home was in constant change, before I could get used to that tree I passed by after a long day at school, I had already moved into a new space, wondering which would be my next go to food stall after a long day. Desperately finding some solace amidst the change. Like everyone who loves comfort, I resented any change that came my way. With time I also realised that changes came with opportunities and I couldn't choose only one.

Home was a space I could call my own, a sense of ownership prevailed in that, while in college I was confined to a bunk but still took pride to call it mine. My home in Bangalore that overlooked a lake was where I took out time to have my morning breakfast accompanied with a cup of black coffee. Skimming through every change that I had to make, I took some time to acclimatise to the city, the people. The sense of belongingness is precious and has its own charm and comes at its own sweet time. One day you will be taking that metro you have been taking for the past few months and you see a stranger who is familiar because she takes it at the same time as you do, and then you will have a new place to call home.

While I enjoyed every bit of exploring a new town, I craved a beer from the same bar I visited during 5 years of college. I missed the comfort of having an unplanned potluck, a Diwali away from family or an uninvited thanksgiving dinner. It was unusual to get attached to inanimate surroundings and then I had a minor epiphany. Tomorrow I want to wake up to an empty corner I decorate with a lamp, add a fridge magnet of all my travels to the fridge and save some expensive wines for those intimate dates with my partner. I realised that it was more about the warmth of people around that made things much more simple, more familiar, more homely.

Someone has rightly said, home is where family is. There is a family that we have by default and, sometimes we build another family along the way. While sipping that black coffee every morning with a surreal view of the lake, I reminisced our day to day life with my childhood friend. Somewhere before writing this piece, I realised on how these spaces were more "homely" because of the people I shared them with. The worst days from work were turned into eventful game nights. The festivals where you devour your favourite food and try to revisit your family musts, the impromptu weekday drinking after a submission at college was something only an adventurous companion could do. A lazy Saturday when we lay on bed deciding which food and series to binge on, was home.

I am sure we like to give one permanent address while we have something official to be delivered, that one house we always yearn to go back to. But imagine, through years you built so many of them, a bunch of people you call home.