It has been twenty one years since I left home. Through these years, I learnt what it means to live in a metropolitan city, pick bits and pieces of a new language, make my home and build connections. I was a teenager when I moved out and now at thirty-eight, I don’t regret the move.
Over these years, Bengaluru became my city and gave me a home.
I have felt at home in Bengaluru but also felt far away from home. My parents are 1500 miles away in the city I grew up and went to school. City that one can cover on a hand pulled rickshaw and where on every nook and corner, there are people who know either Mum or Papa.
Oftentimes I have wondered why I think so much about this. Why does it bother me that I have been away from home for the last twenty one years?
My peers and friends talk about visiting their families for weekly dinners or celebrating a festival together. Something turns inside me when I hear their plans. A pang. I can’t show up at my parents’ house. It’s not a walk or a ride away. I need to schedule a trip in every way possible to take two flights and a drive to reach home. A full day, if I plan well.
I never knew finding my place in the world would mean leaving everyone I knew behind.
A voice in my head questions, “What’s in Bengaluru?”
And then reasoning takes over feelings.
I have my job here. The financial independence that comes with it. The one thing that brings bread on our table.
I have access to facilities that have made my life comfortable. There is power, water, medical facilities, on demand cabs, home deliveries and what not. Life is easy in Bengaluru. The pace is how I prefer. The attitude that fits right in.
So then I wonder why do I bother?
When I am back home, the city has changed. I don’t know the people anymore. My school looks different and the houses I knew have changed. I see an unorganized chaos. There are new restaurants on the roads where I used to cycle. Rickshaw pullers struggle to make ends meet because an e-rickshaw is easier to navigate in that chaos.The city doesn’t look mine and I feel like a stranger in the city that used to be mine.
Then which city is mine and which is yours?
This post was inspired by a video that I watched recently. It is a rap in Bhojpuri but there are English subtitles. The video made me think of myself and the life I have.
Writing a non-fiction piece for YeahWrite #492 today.
happiness and food 
Great post parul, enjoyed reading – some of the things what you have spoken touched my heart…My parents have migrated years ago two generations have gone by. I am in the same city, but my parents are no more, the home that belonged to all of us children is occupied by two of my brothers, and everything has changed… I don’t feel at home when I visit that place because my mother is no more… the whole place has changed… I have settled in another part of the city for the last 20 years… and I feel this is my place… still sometimes I long for my parents and I know they are not going to come back… more than the place its them I miss..
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Strange indeed. And here is why i say it. Iblived in Bangalore for 25 years of my life. Mom dad, aunts, relatives, my school, my college. I knew it all.
And then I left it, got married into a fraternity that never gave me one house, but ensured I could make my home anywhere/ everywhere I went.
Every time I go to Bangalore, I cringe. Its not the place i grew up in. My lane has changed. What once had humble homes now has eateries and offices. Yes Bangalore has become more fast paced. It wasn’t like that before
Every place every city has changed. Probably its got to be the era we grew up in. And this is what we crave for
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Ahh, I know this feeling. I’ve spent all of my life away from my extended family and most of my adult life away from my immediate family in one town or another (or one country or another). It’s so hard to reconcile that longing for place, for home, isn’t it? But also, as you note, our home towns rarely stay the way we remember them. It would be really good to see how the next generation feel about this distance. For example, my kids don’t really notice the distance from extended family in India, but when we lived in the US, they felt the distance from their grandparents, uncles & aunts, cousins, and friends.
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Interesting question with no easy answers. The answer will vary from people to people. But I’m sure when you stay for a couple of days in your home town, it will not feel like an alien place.
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Very interesting post Parul and I can relate to it as I left my home at age 22 and have been a “migrant” for now 23 years and out of these, I have spent 13 years on my own. I am somehow neither nostalgic about my hometown and dont miss much from there as I found Delhi to be my haven. Not just financial independence but it gave me freedom to be me. I could travel where I wanted, meet with anyone, enjoy monuments, alfresco dining, join libraries, dancing classes and so much more which truly made me who I am today. Home is a repressed feeling for me as I come from a very conservative family and not much freedom of thought and space is given to girls there. Even the boys dont fare that much better but they are most probs stockholmed into accepting it. I broke free and for the life of me I dont want to go back to it; I visit but very randomly as I love to travel to newer places and the city where I grew up honestly just doesnt feel like home to me at all. I really loved this post and am so glad you wrote it up for it made me ponder over this question and I am so happy with my answer 🙂
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It’s so hard to leave home, and really strange to return after a long absence. For me, I feel it when I return to the place I called home for 10 years. It’s so disconcerting to the changes you weren’t a part of. A very thoughtful piece.
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I relate to this. I left home at 17 also and moved back only once, for a year after college, then I was out of there for a bigger city. I get a little pang of envy too, when I see people who live right by their families and can easily have dinners together or have Grandma babysit. But if I had it to do over again, I’m not sure I’d change anything, either.
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I am glad you made Bangalore your home and you like the city. I have seen many immigrants come to the city and have nothing , but complaints. I am glad you appreciate our city. I have been in your shoes. When I lived in USA every year I came to Bangalore, I couldn’t recognize myself with the city. I saw that it change rapidly. I am happy to be finally back for good.
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You write beautifully. You have captured the feeling of change and belonging so well. I have been waiting for your August gratitude post. Hope all is well.
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Thank you, Niki! So kind of you to say that. August was hard for us. So I did not write one for the blog but I plan to combine September and August by month end.
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Hope the coming months bring only good things your way. Take care Parul.
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What to say . Written beautifully and touched the heart because I am it’s part and parcel .
It’s very good that you love Bangalore and it should be .you know why we start loving any city ? I believe besides cab, medical facilities most importantly people who are around us .Time changes and so the place also .
For me my parent’s house is still alive in my heart though neither parents are alive nor nor house is ours . ( sold) .
But no one can reduce the waves of the memories spent over there.
May Bangalore love you more and more and you spend your days happily.
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I can relate to it so well.
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For me I have always been a migrant. I am a Mangalorean born and brought up in Bombay, I moved to Pune when I was 10 and to Mangalore when I was 18 and then to Bangalore when I was studying CA at 22. Back to Pune at 33. I find it difficult to call any one place home. My mom lives with me so I don’t have those pangs of missing family. Cousins and relatives are in Bombay and its easier now visiting. Infact I feel good about moving on to new places, meeting new people and getting to experience newer cultures. So far Pune has been the one that I have felt most at home with! I get where you come from, when I visit Mangalore and I haven’t done that for years , I am pretty sure I will experience the same feeling that you had.
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Its a beautiful post . I too get attached to cities where I have worked . Favourite city has been Guwahati & Machhiwara in Ludhiana district .
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so true! where do we belong! Bangalore seems home but I keep missing parents and long to go back home! but as you correctly mentioned what is home, where is home! people have changed, everybody is a stranger now, those lanes, shops, atmosphere everything is changed. We are so used to comforts of metro cities that the pace of small cities and services make us go back and we are left with the question- where is my home?
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