Nowhere. Everywhere.

As I sit here in the dead of the night, like it always transpires with me and my insidious inspirations, I realize, I am sitting on the cusp of a big change. It doesn’t unfaze me in the least. If anything it makes me feel curious, excited, and a thimbleful of happy.

Just a week back I was in Madrid, packing four years worth of life in garbage bags and suitcases. Throwing some, sending some across the seas onto another continent. I said goodbye to precious memories, and special friends, and a city which had embraced me like I was it’s own. When I close my eyes to this day, I can imagine walking down my street- Calle San Vicente Ferrer, upto Tribunal in the bleak winter sun. And this memory will remain me with me for eternity. For even though my mind is here, my heart often wanders onto those precious streets of Malasaña where I found  love, friendship, but more importantly myself. 

                                                                                                Picture (Top): Musicians Perform at C/ Fuencarral, Madrid

 I am in another continent now, Asia. European charm has been traded in for the oriental grace and efficiency in Hong Kong. As I write my thesis these days, I miss my other homes. Guangzhou, Delhi, Goa, Madrid – in no particular order. I miss the peculiar smell of fish and fenny in Goa. I miss the musty car park smell of the basement in Guangzhou. I miss the burned embers of tandoor crackling in the winter night, mixed with smog, assaulting the senses with a smell that is quintessentially Delhi. And the distinct wetness in the air during
monsoons and the thrill of an unseasonal rain that beckoned all the children of Delhi out onto the streets. Home is usually synonymous of the country and city you lived in or the place where your parents live in. Often these two coincide. Many times they don’t.

I often wonder – What is my home? Delhi? Yes, I did grow up there, but I don’t have a home there anymore. My grandparents do live there, but my parents don’t. Is it Hong Kong? My parents live here, but I haven’t ever lived here and I won’t in another couple of months. Madrid? No, not since I set sail a week ago.  Does that imply I don’t have a home anymore? Maybe. Does that bother me? Not in the least. “Settling down” is a term that didn’t manage to endear itself to me. So this phase of abandon and being without an anchor as such should be right up my alley.

    

Picture (Top-Left):Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, Delhi
Picture (Bottom-Left) : View of Hong Kong from the Peak, Hong Kong  

Maybe there is a reason I don’t have a “place” to call home. Perhaps since hypothetically every place could be my home. Why must I limit myself in a geographic sense? (1)

Perhaps, I am looking at it all wrong. Maybe as Emily Dickinson said it “Where thou art – that– is –Home.” (2)

Combining (1) and (2) above: I am here, right now, this moment, this is home. This is nowhere. This is everywhere.