Home

Home.
From the umpteen number of times I've packed and moved, sometimes bundling up friendships and relationships and memories..mostly just clothes and junk and at othertimes, expectations and dreams and even hopes both bright and awry.... I have but one, nay two entries in my journal, both at different points of time, one when I left the City of my education, unfinished..full of hopes and friends whom I considered closer than family and another a year later, when I was leaving the city of my birth when all those previous opinions had been dashed..with a new quiet strength replacing it.. And this is what I'd written...

Interpretations of people and situations change, they bloody as well change for people do change, relationships change and even whole cities change.
Pune is the place I've been calling home now..My grandest love for a City where I continue to have the best memories and the worst screw-ups.. It's still home but what of the one I left behind 2 years ago..so desperately wanting to run away??

By now,as much as I had said that it was never a house or a building that makes a home, but the people in it; I've realized that it's not the people either.
Home is still wherever you go, wherever you choose to lay your head in peace, that place you go to at the end of a day - any day.

But what home really is lies in the sense of belonging and contentment one gets from being in any particular place. Therefore, home is not defined by the person or the place or the situations but the feeling. The feeling of belonging.

This special feeling is so important that it explains why some people still love any weird, hurtful place that brings so much pain, or has people that treat them more like furniture than a human being. It is that sense of belonging, a strong bond maybe even a feeling of kinship with that particular place, of being one with it not just because of growing up there at various times or happy memories but even because of going through painful experiences... It doesn't matter, what happened inside that place you call home, it will be home to you... and it will still feel like home every time you return. Especially the ones that always keep the door open to receive you back despite anything,nothing and everything.

My favorite Metallica song goes..

"Off the beaten path I reign
Rover wanderer
Nomad vagabond
Call me what you will

But Ill take my time anywhere
Im free to speak my mind anywhere
And Ill never mind anywhere
Anywhere I may roam
Where I lay my head is home"

Home is merely the feeling. And I'm so glad I have many such places.

***
my parent's home, city of my birth.
my maternal grandparent's home, city of my birth.
my paternal gramp's house and the temple, place of my childhood.
the 3 farms, here and there.
my apartment, Pune.
The neighborhood Barista, Pune.
my bestesht friend's home,Pune.
The sexy flat, Chennai.
Factory guesthouse, some village.
the solitary beach, anywhere.
and almost just there...my boyfriend's home.
but most definitely, his arms ;)
***

winner/loser

They spend all their time telling you that you're nothing, that you're a loser; so much that you go ahead and believe everything that they say you are... so bad that you expect yourself to fail, you expect yourself to screw up. Just like they told you, you would. If those meant to believe in you, the ones meant to support, hold you up and believe in you blindly and unconditionally are the ones who destroy you, then the only thing you can do is to forgive them, move on and look into yourself for the extraordinary faith that only you can have in yourself, for yourself. Never give them that authority to define who you are.

They are the losers. NOT YOU. Accepting what they said gives them way too much power over you - power that they don't deserve because no one can make you feel like shit about yourself. NO ONE HAS THAT POWER. That is true strength of character.
That is what makes you a better person, better than that guy who has to make someone else feel worse to feel good about himself. There should be no need to look down on anyone or judge them. Like the wise have said, if you so choose to judge others then judge them as you'd like yourself to be judged. Everyone to themselves, right or wrong, for we are no one to judge anyone except ourselves.

What makes one a great person is when there is no need for any righteous hypocritical bullshit from anyone. All you'd need is an unshakable faith in yourself and the strength to defend that faith no matter what, or who.. with head high and heart sure.


*Hmhmm. Where this post originated in that murky brain of mine, I don't know. Maybe it was just the movie I watched this afternoon. Maybe it just rang true, somewhere.. one of those lessons learnt the hard way, one that I need to keep reminding myself of*

Dreaming out aloud

I keep thinking about you, but you already know that. One of my
weaknesses – any real emotion, and all notions of secrecy disappear. I
literally see myself picking up the phone and dialing your number, I
can see your finger pressing the 'answer' button and I can hear myself
say, "Hey you !!!" and you for once saying..." heyyyy
maaaa or heyy baabe" subconsciously... It isn't in my control.

But I have been thinking about you. You know, I told you that I loved
you, so long ago... yeah, I did, apparently and I still do every night
whatever happens...Must seem like a long time ago when we both said
it,meant it with every bit of our being... lol... But I did say it. I
did mean it too, in some silly, infatuated, head-rush-inducing manner,
I love you. A year ago.

I still do.

Only it is a different love now; calmer, more implicit, less rushed,
stronger. But also, it is a love less inclined towards entertaining
hormonal urges or temper tantrums or frequent hanging-up
sequences...Yeah, I don't get pissed..sad and numbed over maybe. I
suppose that makes it completely useless to you. When I can call you
and crib about something that hurt me or.... try and ask you questions
so we can have one of those famous all night convos debating world
issues or the purpose of life as we know it... When you can call me
(theoretically) and talk about the same old same old with the same old
same old. When I can imagine doing exactly this, ten years from now,
when you and I will be famous and bitter (more than we are now, babe,
more). I think we'll both die of an overdose of cynicism. Won't that
be perfect? That didn't make sense. haha. We'd be happily married
officially I suppose... I hope so. A kid in tow.. lol.. our dreams?

Sometimes, I can't think of a place, a thing, a city, without thinking
of you. Of us on the sidewalk. Of us smoking cigarettes, looking cool
because we didn't want to look cool, of us laughing at morons, of us
drinking and singing and drinking and laughing and drinking and making
love and long drives going everywhere and no where and fumbling for money. It was a good time, wasn't it? I was happy. And sometimes, that sense of you holding me
with an arm over me engulfs me, and I almost stop doing whatever I'm
doing and I almost stop breathing.

Take me back to that one month when we couldn't wait for life to
begin? And when we could always turn to " I don't want to miss a
thing" for some therapy. Take me back. I don't think I grabbed enough
memories from then. And every day I forget something else, and I frown
in despair, trying to remember what it was that you had said that made
me giggle so. Jog my memory. Write it down. Whisper it into my
fingers. Something. But if you can't, I understand.
In the meantime, I'll keep calling hoping you'll say "Hey babe..I
missed you so much"