The Concept of Home

It’s funny how, if you Google the word ‘home’ and look for images, it returns thousands of pictures of nice big houses with well manicured lawns and all the stuff that comes up in our mental picture when we think of the word. But then isn’t what you would call a house? Maybe it’s because I attended one class too many on Communication Theory and the way we use words, but this got me thinking.

So after nearly five months of college, I got to spend close to a month back home in Trivandrum. But it was just around the time that I stepped onto the suburban train that was the first step on my journey back, that my overactive brain (which keeps throwing up philosophical ideas of all kinds, though rarely anything of use) started whirring. At the same time I realized that I had strange constricted sensation somewhere in my chest too, but thankfully that went away before I could start suspecting a heart attack.

Over the next twenty plus days in Trivandrum, I visited relatives, met up with my close friends, ate like crazy, slept like a pig and did just about everything college students on a break do. However some part of me always longed to be back in my hostel room. Sure, it isn’t big and I share it with two more people, but there’s something about being there that one starts to miss, and miss it I did. Stuck at home, munching away on Hide N Seek biscuits and watching movies, I started missing the people I’d met less than half a year ago, despite being with the people who’d looked after me my entire life. Then came the visit to my father’s house at Ambalapuzha. Honestly, this was the only time I appreciated being back. Even after all these years, when I took a walk through the neighborhood, I noticed that it was still the same place I used to play in as a kid, even though younger cousins had taken my place.

More people were visited, more views on life were heard, and for the first time I got to analyze a difference in the way people live, work and think depending on the place they live in, the culture they’re exposed to. It was like seeing for the first time all the wondrous things read about in books written by much wiser men and women.
So as my visit draws to a close, I finally realize some things that had always been there in the back of my mind. A better understanding of the way I see the world and the way others see it. How my take on relationships and bonds were different than many others. Though I’m sure many of my family members, and probably my parents would think all this is utter nonsense coming from someone who has a very high opinion of himself, this is the way I see it. And I must say, whoever said ‘Home is where the heart is’, was a very wise person. Because we humans aren’t really just drawn to a building or even just our families. We seek places where we feel at home. Home isn’t something we have to go to; it’s something that comes with us, it’s a place where we feel complete.

So this brings me back to the sudden brain activity and constricted chest that accompanied me onto the train to Trivandrum. And now, upon reflection, I think it’s because, somewhere, deep down, I understood that I wasn’t really going home, I was leaving it.