Where are we truly from?

Living in the US, far away from your homeland, has been a dream of many people. I always say this place feels like a different world coming from India. Yes, there are a lot of perks that life in the US offers, which most of us have either heard of or seen, but there is also an element of void that no one really talks much about. People have their own versions of India, but personally I feel life in India is a lot convenient. Everything is at your fingertip and easily accessible. I don’t have to put time on my friends’ calendars for an evening, or plan for groceries trips, or worry about housekeeping in the middle of a busy work week. Having said that, I also find life in the US addictive. It is so much peaceful and a lot less eventful than India. There is freedom and my personal space is valued. Slowly, this seclusion becomes a comfort zone. Honestly, I’m torn for choices. I don’t know what I want. The people I have had grown up with in Mumbai have flown away to different places, old buildings have been redone, and the streets that were my muscle memory once do not exist now. Maybe the place that is engraved in my memory does not exist anymore. Life in the US is different. It is so different that words may not be able to capture its exact distinction. Seven years passed by in a flash and this place feels a little like home now. Honestly, I don’t know where I exactly belong to now. Maybe that’s the price you pay for leaving your homeland and starting life in a new country. You are never completely at home anywhere. Sometimes, looking at the pictures in our family WhatsApp group, I realize what I’m missing and feel like going back for good. I get flashes of sitting with my mother on our swing and having chai peacefully. Maybe, in some ways, life is learning to live in this fear of missing out no matter where you live. And, perhaps, for people like us, home is not a place anymore… it is a feeling we share with the people around us.