Yes, that's what I feel now. I do have a roof over my head but it's the inner quest to feel at home in a place away from home. There were days when I missed India so much, I was going about day to day life with discontent and yearning to get back home, to belong, to conform....
I had two choices- to crib, harp, feel miserable or adapt. I chose the second option, a truce with the turmoil within, or so I thought.
I took a trip back home, only to realise I was still not at home, in my own home. I had changed, everything else was, as it was. I was lost and felt homeless. I did enjoy my moments back home but things which had never bothered me earlier, came to surface and I didn't dare to get vocal for fear of being called snobbish.
I am more at peace today, to the point of being stoic. Memories of "good old days" are ensconced deep within, like having loved and lost. It was another time , another world still very vividly alive within me but I do not delve into it. I am living my dream of dwelling abroad..and wishing I had never dreamt so.
Sudipa, had read a poem long back, might be fitting in the context..
ReplyDeleteLOVE AFTER LOVE.
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine.Give bread.Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
by Derek Wallcott
So nice of you to have managed the balance between home and away, past and present, old and new.
ReplyDeleteI feel there is too much more to learn from you apart from your finger-licking recipes!!!
ReplyDeleteBeautifully writen :-)) Some thing that may be every one goes through but not every one manages to put it across so well....
ReplyDelete