The question of belonging to a place or community has always perplexed me. What do we call 'Home': the place where we are born, where we work, or some point in the transit that soothes our senses and imagination and just stays on. About a month back, I had my first revelation in this idea during a casual discussion with a friend.
While the question of belonging is simple for some of us, maybe like my parents whose life revolves around three states of Northern India, it can puzzle the global citizens like folks of my generation. Time and again, we show our solidarity towards places where we were born or raised. These discussions would also give rise to certain feelings of regionalism. An example I experienced is that people like to share apartments only with others from their native cities/states, especially when they are in a foreign land. This makes sense to a certain extent that we want to preserve a comfort zone in this foreign land, but it conflicts with the ideas of an organic growth towards understanding new cultures. I am not imposing an opinion, but the greatest risk to the quality of human life is, not taking a risk altogether.
Among my countrymen, like religion, the definition of home is adopted by birth, not by choice or thought. I was lucky to live in different parts of the world in the past 15 or so years. Born and brought up in a small town of Haryana, called Yamuna Nagar, I moved to Chandigarh, Muthal(Sonipat), Pune, Kochi, Chicago and now the San Francisco Bay Area. Never stayed at a place for more than 4 years, but made friends and memories at all these places. While most of the memories were good, some are painful. Anyhow, I kept moving and enjoying the beauty and diversity on this planet. And no doubt, I wish to explore much more.
Every place has its specialties etched in my mind, like Chandigarh had its parks and well managed infrastructure but hardly any friendly faces(for me), Murthal was the anvil that forged some maturity into me, Kochi was the time of drunken revelry, free thinking of an unexperienced mind and a couple of impactful events, Chicago was a place of trials and triumphs. Its so hard to prefer one over the other. Neither do I want to settle down in any one place, when some thing inside me makes me realize that I have one life and I shall rather be a global citizen than to contain my mind in the idea of regionalism.
An interesting thought is, that 'Home is where the heart is'. Point in case, while places of high rises and fabulous infrastructures do excite, they cannot make some one happy over a longer period of time. It will be more like an infatuation that will wither off. Its the people or the moments that I recall in these places, rather than the grandiose of some of these cities.
This is an intermittent question that bothers my inquisitive mind and a restless soul. Maybe it will gain significance or it will just look like a thought on my blog, when I will revisit it in the future.
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