Work took me someplace where I normally wouldn’t be found – an AOL (Art Of Living) discourse. While I have nothing against those who choose that path, I don’t see myself there. Standing there, as a non participant while a few thousand listened and performed yoga, I thought I got a few pointers to what made them a part of this movement. One was a feeling of belonging to a community that had the same wavelength and subscribed to the same thought processes and the other was a meaning, a purpose that the movement gave to their life.
Since it was an official event, I got dropped back at home, and in the process got to do something that i rarely get to do – forget the road, the traffic and the world ahead and soak in the effect of humanity passing by. I don’t know if you enjoy what could be uncharitably labelled gawking, but if you pause and consider that each face, and each expression contains a story, maybe you’d enjoy it like you do.
I passed Resthouse Road on the way, and saw Pecos and Guzzler’s Inn, not places I frequent, but places that are ‘tagged’ in my memories of Bangalore from the time I came here. As i proceeded down Brigade Road, i also saw the signage of Vaayu, a lounge bar, and thought I could see a difference in the crowd that each catered to. I realised that after a while, after a few generations had passed, Bangalore’s character most likely wouldn’t include Pecos, although we would, in our denial of mortality, not think of it that way now.
I reached home, and after the obligatory channel flipping settled down to Rocky Balboa, the comfort of a ‘seen before many times’ movie that will let your thoughts drift and you still wouldn’t feel left out. I never thought I’d quote from a Rocky movie, but it seemed to fit in
Ya know they always say if you live in one place long enough, you are that place.
It stuck to me when I watched Delhi 6 the next evening. An old woman comes back to her country-city-locality to die in peace, in a place that she’s familiar and comfortable with, and finds that the place has remained unchanged, but the people haven’t. And it took me back to this post that I had written a while back – on Cochin and the cosmopolitan place it was becoming.
So, where will I be comfortable finally – Bangalore, where I have now spent 6 years (almost to the day) and where I will (at some point in time) have lived long enough to ‘be the place’, Cochin, which I refuse to let go of, whose memories I guard like a treasure- the chaotic, humid, gets-on-your-nerves place that I consider my home, or someplace new that the cosmos has in store for me. A place which gives me a sense of belonging. A set of people who matter to me and who I matter to. And that’s where this stream of consciousness ends.
The cosmos is listening. From the list of 143 songs in the list, on ‘shuffle’ mode, it has suddenly chosen Daughtry’s Home.
until next time, are we on the same home page? 🙂
..and on the blog today.. “Ends and beginnings” https://manuscrypts.com/?p=1591
nice, leisurly post young manu. i think the thirties are a time of trying to figure out a place to call home. its only after a few years or searching, when the kids come perhaps, when there are associations with them when it solidies into a reality.
Used to randomly walk around Chennai, when I was there, sifting thru random faces trying to read their mind. 🙂 But don’t have a strong attachment to home yet. Could be because I haven’t been away long enough or all my friends are scattered elsewhere.
There are so many folks who go about trying to find a purpose to the living. And there are those some who think they find some !
Life goes on. Between Pecos, Guzzlers inn, Delhi 6 and ofcourse Cochin !
🙂
Very nice pace to this post. It is good to know what is home and what is not- the years drum in this lesson.
Disliked Gulaal- but will take your word for Delhi 6.
Missing post, btw- but that was a good one.
//The cosmos is listening. From the list of 143 songs in the list, on ’shuffle’ mode, it has suddenly chosen Daughtry’s Home.//
Happened to me once too many times 🙂
g
cynic: hmm… i wonder if we have a shelf life for our earlier associations..only time will tell
Arby: yep, that is possible.. ‘home’ is a sort of place in the mind too
kavi: yes, life does seem to move on, even when we’re not watching 🙂
austere: Gulaal was hmm, hatke.. Delhi 6 is a mood movie, it flows… the music is awesome though… missing post is back 🙂
gauri: the matrix line goes “…I do not see coincidence, I see providence” 🙂
What a post! I know it was written some time back, But its a serendipitous coincidence that I met our mutual friend via whom I met you and am sitting here reading this post from my hotel room today. I know what you mean when you talk of the pleasure one derives from gawking…not offensively so, however.
And have been mulling of this feeling – people often describe it as displacement, but its not that…it a feeling of not having found your cocoon, your own special niche in the world……and when pessimism that prevails sometimes that makes you feel that you will never belong…..anywhere. I sometimes wonder if this is something inherent in my own make-up, whether there is “wanderer-gene”!!! Don’t get me wrong, I immensely enjoy traveling and have done so and am doing it extensively, but I miss coming to a place I can really call home.
🙂 welcome, and glad you liked 🙂
‘home’, it seems, these days, is a mix of several things – place, time, people … you get lucky when you get all these, or at least a couple… so i’m sure you’ll find it soon 🙂
meanwhile, there’s this lovely definition from “Garden State” that i used in another, (in a way) similar post… you might like it
https://manuscrypts.com/2009/02/06/an-idea-called-home/