Home bird

Home is a place of comfort, but not necessarily luxury.

It’s discovery, soapy finger by soapy finger, under layers of dust & other people’s existence. It’s building it, one familiar memento at a time. It’s owning it, inch by inch with every step, every piece of my own life that I put down in it. It’s looking around and saying, “I created this.”

Home is a state of mind, as much as of a place I’m at.

It’s where I feel able to take off my clothes, my masks, my inhibitions and my fears. It’s the place I fall asleep, when everywhere else is just a space for a nap. It is a place, a time, a person, a mood, a state of being that recognizes me, that facilitates me, that makes it possible for me to be me, that says, “So-and-so lives here.”

Home is where I lay my hat but it’s also where I rest the deepest, most precious part of my soul. There’s nothing more personal than home. Home, truly, is where my heart is.

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Two very different pop culture references to home:

First, Jagjit Singh in an Asian Paints ad, which puts into words that irrevocable attachment we feel to home:

“Har ghar chupchap se yeh kehta hain, ke andar isme kaun rehta hain
Chhat batati hain, yeh kiska asmaan hain
Rang kehte hain, kiska yeh jahaan hain
Kamron mein kiski kalpana jhalakti hain
Is farsh pe nange pair, kiske bachche chalte hain
Kaun chun chunke ise pyaar se sajata hain
Kaun is makaan mein, apna ghar basata hain
Har ghar chupchap se yeh kehta hain, ke andar isme kaun rehta hain
Kyonki har ghar kuch kehta hain”

(rough translation)

“A home whispers of who lives inside it
The roof tells us who owns that piece of sky
The colours speak of whose world that is
Whose are the dreams that sparkle in each room
Whose are the children who run barefoot on these floors
Who has adorned this space, bit by loving bit
Who has made their home within these four walls
Because every home says something”

And secondly, a Simon & Garfunkle song called Homeward Bound which tells of that intangible sense of incompleteness & yearning that surrounds us when we are far from home.

“All my words come back to me,
in shades of mediocrity,
like emptiness & harmony,
I need someone to comfort me.

Homeward bound, I wish I was.”

We all need a place to belong to and home is what lets us know that there is room for each of us in this universe.

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If you liked this post also read:

• How a city I resist brings me closer to the city I love in A Tale Of Two Cities
• My conflicted emotions when I travel in Home