Home! Home. Home?

Me, Ma, Maiji, Dadabhai, Rini. Photo Credit: Buddhadeva Raychoudhury, 1978.

July, 1987. I was 16. I was leaving home. The only home I had known till then. A small house in Raurkela. A small town in Eastern India, whose name literally means ‘home’.

I was moving to a wonderful school in a wonderful city, Kolkata, while my parents were moving to a far-from-great town, with far-from-great schools. To this day, I can feel, so clearly, in my throat – a dryness and constriction, and in my eyes – some paralyzed tears, and a diminishing vision.

e diminishing car, that had my father at the wheel, and my mother, who leaned out and kept a smiling front, “Bhalo theyko. Bhalo korey kheyeyo (Be well. Eat well.)”

Despite starting a promising new curriculum, in one of the nation’s finest schools of my choice, my world fell apart. With my family split between four cities, there would never again be a time in my life when we would share the same space as home.

Helter Skelter, Gimme Shelter

In my self-imposed, semi-displaced state, between homes, between a long, gainfully employed past, and an uncertain future, I often find myself thinking about the displaced around the world.dis·place /[dis-pleys]
–verb (used with object), -placed, -plac·ing.
1. to compel (a person or persons) to leave home, country, etc.
2. to move or put out of the usual or proper place.

Displacement-physical or mental, free or forced, personal or communal, internal or cross border-tear at us, and those that we leave behind.