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Home! Sweet home!

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by bhagyachinu, Jan 8, 2013.

  1. bhagyachinu

    bhagyachinu Gold IL'ite

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    A habitual drunk staggered up to the front door of a home late one night, and kept rapping loudly until a lady in pyjamas came to answer.
    “Par’n me, ma’am,” he lushes, “this is an emergency. Can you tell me where Mulla Nasrudin lives?”
    “Why,” she exclaimed, “you are Mulla Nasrudin yourself!”
    “I know, I know,” he replied, “but that still doesn’t answer the question — where does he live?”

    I much find myself in that situation often. Like a driftwood. Not knowing where I belong and where my home is. Even after four decades of living.

    As a Palakkad brahmin in Kerala, I always felt that I was a outsider there. (no, nobody contributed to that feeling, it’s self-made). We talk tamil at home (if you can call that tamil) and outside everybody talks malayalam. We siblings as soon as we step out, spoke only in Malayalam – to feel a sense of belonging? I do not know. Then when I came to Chennai to live with my parents, I felt people think us rather as Keralites. I used to joke that we belong neither to Kerala nor Tamilnadu. May be my sense of not belonging started there.

    This was further enhanced by the shifting of houses (my aunt who brought me up, was a nurse and she shifted places whenever she got a transfer) and the change in people with whom I lived with – sometimes with grandma, sometimes this aunt, sometimes with that aunt, at an uncle’s place, sometimes in hostel, sometimes with a third aunt. And finally with my parents. That is till I got married . All this made me feel like a flotsam and jetsam. All those places were temporary halting places so much so that even after coming to live with my parents I never felt I was home.

    This was a constant irritant in my life. My worst nightmares is the one where I am standing on a road for a bus to arrive but so afraid that I do not know which direction I have to go and where my home is. Though, of late I’ve not got that nightmare for some time.

    In my search for a home, I found that some places (like a wood, river banks, some temples especially Guruvayur and Tiruvannamalai) and people made me feel at ease. I constantly went to those places to just rejuvenate myself. To fill myself with energy and peace.

    After marriage, I got my own house. Oh, we shifted houses (my husband is in a bank) and finally built a house where I’m staying the past five years. That is a permanent dwelling as of now. However when I think about it, I really do not consider it as home. So what is a home? I know it’s a place where I feel at ease and secured and feel as if I do not want anything more. So why is that I don’t get my nightmare these days?

    I realized that it’s not a place, a building where I stay. It is about the people you are with. The way they make you feel. I feel at home when I wake up and find my husband near me and I know everything will be fine with the world no matter what. No matter where I live, if he’s with me I feel comfortable. At home.

    However, ultimately, I know even that is not real. I can say I have arrived home the day I feel comfortable and at ease with myself. It’s all in my mind. It’s me who is not comfortable and not others. So I am waiting for that flash to strike bhagya so that she accepts herself completely and start respecting and loving her. Till then her search is on…

    Time to go Home
    Late and starting to rain,
    it’s time to go home
    We’ve wandered long enough
    in empty buildings.
    I know it’s tempting to stay
    and meet those new people.
    I know it’s even more sensible
    to spend the night here with them,
    but I want to go home.
    We’ve seen enough beautiful places
    with signs on them saying
    This is God’s House.That’s seeing the
    grain like the ants do,
    without the work of harvesting.
    Let’s leave grazing to cows and go
    where we know what everyone really intends,
    where we can walk around without clothes on.
    - Jelaludding Rumi. Translation Coleman Barks
     
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  2. Pallavi4me

    Pallavi4me Platinum IL'ite

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    Thats a wonderful read bhagyachinu.

    These two lines are just excellent. Loved to read your writings after a considerable time. :)
     
  3. bhagyachinu

    bhagyachinu Gold IL'ite

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    thanks pallavi. i know i'm not regular. But that is how it is :D.
     
  4. suby

    suby Silver IL'ite

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    Dear bhagya,

    I liked your post. My wife too is a Palakkad Brahmin. She also speaks like Kamalahasan as Kamarajan in the movie Michael, Madan, Kamarajan. You seem to be a voracious reader with varied likes. I would love to read more on Mullah Nasseruddin and Rumi from you.

    -suby
     
  5. sanrags

    sanrags Bronze IL'ite

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  6. honeybee

    honeybee Gold IL'ite

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    Dear bhagya
    This is an awesome blog...
    I hail from palakkad too and what we speak (you and me!) is "talayalam." right?
    My friend once said.."We are unique.. disowned by proper brahms from Tamil nadu and proper malayalees:"

    As you rightly said.."home is where the heart is!"

    regards
    honeybee
     
  7. honeybee

    honeybee Gold IL'ite

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    Suby sir
    My husband sails in the same boat as you do.BTW have you learnt our special lingo?
    When we were "just married" he commented.."Men are from mars but X (that's me!) and family hail from an unnamed planet.".Today he speaks palakkad tamil with ease.

    regards
    honeybee
     

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