Home

Everyone yearns for a home. But what is it, this thing we call home? It’s not just a physical space, the place where your family resides. While this is a good enough definition of home; having lived away from my family for the last seven years, I’d say that I’ve made myself at home in many places.

The dingy, ancient, fortress like hostel that I called home during my college years. Each year a new room, some dusty and neglected, one with the best views on campus. A new floor, a new corridor, a new building each year, the friends and neighbours the only constants. I’ve considered each one of those rooms my home.

Later, working in Bangalore, I lived for two years in a 2-bedroom apartment with four others. A place brimming with fond memories and the joy of living independently with enough money in our pockets. Exonerated from the guilt of spending our parents money. This too was home. Then came the move to Kozhikode, and the surprisingly great hostels there. Each of these spaces have been home. Spaces I’ve lived in, spaces I’ve made my own, spaces I associate with a particular memory, experience or phase in my life.

Over these many years, I’ve gone back to my family home intermittently, once every two or three months. But I’ve always been a guest there. Now, this didn’t just mean I got good food or got pampered the few days I spent there every year. It meant that I did not have a room of my own, not a wardrobe nor personal space of any sort. Before I go on, it should be made clear that my family had moved into this house right after I’d left for my college. As an occasional visitor, I hadn’t really needed a room there.

When the pandemic struck, the campus closed and I was sent packing back to this home that was not yet my home. Not having lived there for more than a week in my entire life, I moved into a spare room. A room whose earlier occupants included an ancient typewriter plus an assortment of electronic components and equipment that my father used. I set about making this room my own. Slowly encroaching upon the earlier inhabitants and making myself comfortable. This took quite a while. Once the room was set to my liking, what followed was much more challenging.

Having lived away from my family for a while, there was a process of rediscovery. Noticing the little things that I’d forgotten, or not really seen earlier. Things that I’d learnt to speak up against and criticize in my life outside. I could try to reason against these, but more often I learnt to live in peace with them.

To me, this seems to be what these past 5 months have been about. A struggle against the loss of independence. The questioning of beliefs and loss of identity that seem to be the result of living with your family as a fully functioning adult.

This is not a piece where the writer finds his place in his family and lives a happy life. One with a reassuring message to tell. One where I rediscover my childhood home. For the very idea of a golden period in your life to reminisce about and yearn for seems flawed. There can be no perfect home to which we might return to, only different spaces you inhabit and build for yourself at different periods in your life. But the simple truth is, like many of you, I’m just sitting here with my bags packed. Waiting for the mail telling us that we can go back to campus. Cause right now, in this phase of my life, Kozhikode is home.