When I came to Bangalore on July 31, 2019 it was hard to imagine for me that this would be the place I will have to call home for many years. At that time, it was a temporary reloaction in my mind. I had thought that this tech job was only for a few months till I get back on track of my original life plan. But little did I knew…
Today after almost 3 years as I write this from Bangalore, the tech job has become permanent. I have grown to like this job and the money and security it provides. But on days like today when I don’t have work and I don’t feel like reading, I wonder.. Will this city ever be home?
When I came to Bangalore for the first time in 2015, It was so strange for me.. the streets, the people, the place. Today When I wander around on a sunday morning, sometimes the strangeness comes back and so does the smells – of tea and cigarette, of idli and dosa on road side stalls, of perfumed shopping malls. These smells and scenes are familiar but i can’t come to own them. Do you understand what I am trying to say.. perhaps not…
Some years ago when I used to study social sciences, I often thought about the people who left for North America or UK in 1980s, 90s, and 2000s. The movies and videos that showed footage from that time always fascinated me. How hard it must have been for them? Were the comforts of a first world life enough to heal the pain of leaving everything and everyone behind? Did they find a home in those far away lands or do they still yearn to come back?
On this point, I wonder…. What is a home anyway? Is it a place where you grow up? Is it a place where you go to earn and live a dignified life? Or can it be any house where you can come back to some people who love you and the city doesn’t matter? Would we be okay to spend our old age in a house where we didn’t spend our childhood or adulthood? Or home is a mystery place in mountains where everybody wants to go nowadays? How hard it must be for girls who have to marry, go to other house and make it home?
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