home is where the heart is? or where my ancestors are?

We’ve all grown up watching that dreamy look, and a small, indescribable smile on our parents faces, as they told us stories of their childhood homes. The mountains or the seas, the trees, their pets, their grandparents, and a million other relatives formed an inseparable part of their lives, and their stories.  They have told us far too many tales of how they celebrated festivals and occasions. I was always awed by these recollections, and have always yearned to meet these people, visit these places.

Vacations, for us who have been brought up outside India, have always been about visiting our parents’ homes, and relatives. When I was small, it never struck me that my parents called these places our home. Oblivious to everything, I enjoyed the sights, the smells, and the sheer joy of visiting new places. But as I grew older, and started taking lots of other things like availability of facilities, the general demeanor of people, cleanliness, and company, into consideration, I realized that these places have never felt like home. They were plain vacation spots to me. Recently, I’ve started making a huge fuss about having to go to Kerala again, for my vacation. My parents’ response: we can’t not go home. Home? What are they talking about? My home is right here.

I was born in this country, I was brought up in this country. I made friends here. I love the food here. I have all my memories here. Bahrain has always been my platform. As much as I’ve never climbed trees or never bathed in brooks, it’s here that I had my first birthday party, it’s here that I love going to the sea. The sea, again, has been a bone of contention, always. My parents have never failed to ask, every single time, how I could like this dead, unmoving sea. Well, this is the sea that I remember seeing, this the sea where I swim, this the sea beside which I’ve spent nights singing, and sitting around fires. My paternal home address is what has been given in my passport. That, and the few memories from vacations, are the only things that tie me to that place. I’m a Malayali in the way that I primarily speak in Malayalam, eat authentic kerala cuisine at home, and am more or less familiar with the culture. But Bahrain, is my home.

Most of us connect with atleast one parent perfectly, these days. Their views and feelings about their homes, perfectly fine. It is their incapability in understanding that these feelings, in the same intensity, are the ones that we have about their homes, that baffles me. And we are not the only ones that are baffled. They have no clue either, as to why we wouldn’t see their homes  the same way that they do. Infact, it’s not their home, but ours! One issue all of us second generation children from countries outside India face would be the question of true identity. We are all, technically, Indians. Not only officially, but also by practice. And yet, our hearts belong to another nation. A place that we call home, but we don’t really belong to. We all go off to other countries to continue our education, and slowly, we get acclimatized to those places. That infinitely strong bond that our parents have with their homes, we miss out on that. There is no knowing if we will ever come back to these countries that we grew up in. I’ve always wondered if I’ll be able to show my children the place I think I belong to.