A friend who is moving mentioned that she was glad in a way for her city had started becoming too familiar. I have never really known the feeling of calling a city my own. I lived in a small hamlet of a town called Purnea till I was 9. My parents still live there, it is the single place I have had a connection to my entire life and by the conventional definition, it should qualify as my town. But my years there were spent in a protective household providing little contact with the world outside home and school. There wasn’t much to do apart from playing cricket and getting bullied by girls in a convent school, the place must have its charms but it wasn't really Narayan’s Malgudi to me. I did meet my best friend here, so that’s something, I guess.
At the age of 9, I moved to Patna. This was a place largely synonymous with family for me, it comprised cousins, uncles, grandmothers, all of which both pampered and suffocated me. Families are at their best when they are an assembly of diverse characters – flawed, quirky, opinionated, performing largely the function of adding color to your life, sometimes in excess. Here again, I was an outsider looking inwards.
When I moved to Delhi, I hated it, pretty much for the same reasons anyone hates Delhi. But I continue to feel a strong connection to it. Though I wouldn’t want to live there, I never miss an opportunity to visit Delhi. Delhi was where I grew up, this was the place I started becoming the person I was to become. Yet, so strongly we disagreed, it would be laughable to call Delhi my own, in any way.
Bangalore is the city I moved to for college and where I currently, work. Bangalore has been kind to me, Bangalore agrees with me, the weather (despite the absence of a real winter), the rust in the Bangalore sky late at night, the conduciveness to a late night walk, and even though I am not really one of them I like Bangaloreans, it is not a mere coincidence that this city has produced Dravid and Kumble. I fell in love for the first time in Bangalore. There are things about the city I like to file in my head categorized as 'my Bangalore'. Yet, I don’t know if a North Indian can ever really call Bangalore his own.
At the age of 9, I moved to Patna. This was a place largely synonymous with family for me, it comprised cousins, uncles, grandmothers, all of which both pampered and suffocated me. Families are at their best when they are an assembly of diverse characters – flawed, quirky, opinionated, performing largely the function of adding color to your life, sometimes in excess. Here again, I was an outsider looking inwards.
When I moved to Delhi, I hated it, pretty much for the same reasons anyone hates Delhi. But I continue to feel a strong connection to it. Though I wouldn’t want to live there, I never miss an opportunity to visit Delhi. Delhi was where I grew up, this was the place I started becoming the person I was to become. Yet, so strongly we disagreed, it would be laughable to call Delhi my own, in any way.
Bangalore is the city I moved to for college and where I currently, work. Bangalore has been kind to me, Bangalore agrees with me, the weather (despite the absence of a real winter), the rust in the Bangalore sky late at night, the conduciveness to a late night walk, and even though I am not really one of them I like Bangaloreans, it is not a mere coincidence that this city has produced Dravid and Kumble. I fell in love for the first time in Bangalore. There are things about the city I like to file in my head categorized as 'my Bangalore'. Yet, I don’t know if a North Indian can ever really call Bangalore his own.
7 comments:
What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell just as sweet.
Traditional thinking has us all believe that we need one single point to call home--a pin from which we string ourselves when we travel. But those with wanderlust, do they suffer a worse fate with temporary homes? Do you treat yourself as a guest in someone else's city, or allow yourself to be the close friend who acts as family and treats the city like his own home?
Aren't they all your homes? Providing enough comfort to make you feel safe, enough discomfort to make you leave and explore the world.
^Not sure I entirely get your point, but every person does like a place where they can curl up and call their own. Or so I like to believe.
Perhaps my word is especially weak having never left Bangalore in the two decades that I've 'existed', but this city is still the place which shows me familiar faces in even the most hostile crowd.
~Tanmay
@Anonymous - Not being from any one place does provide one the luxury of adopting multiple places. But there is a certain comfort that comes from the feeling of calling a place your own. At some level, we desire roots. It is the mystery of human chemistry that certain nooks and corners, crossings and thoroughfares, or simple the taste of the air in some places just feels like home. It's that feeling that one misses. But your point is well taken.
@Anonymous - Not being from any one place does provide one the luxury of adopting multiple places. But there is a certain comfort that comes from the feeling of calling a place your own. At some level, we desire roots. It is the mystery of human chemistry that certain nooks and corners, crossings and thoroughfares, or simple the taste of the air in some places just feels like home. It's that feeling that one misses. But your point is well taken.
Bhai, isse toh Priyanka Chopra ka pataka waala gaana yaad aa gaya. Well wrote.
I sense that a longer post contextualizing what Bangalore means to you is now imminent.
I'm sure it would be a great read if you could tell us how the city played a part in the decisions regarding life, love and work that you made.
Also, at the risk of sounding harsh, I think you are saying the north Indian thing because - not knowing the local tongue, you can't get the whole package, the real flavour of the city. That stuff makes a difference.
@snickersnee I have actually been trying to write that post for a while without any success. Places and how they affect is hard to write on.
You are probably right, the city can only speak to you so much if you don't speak its language.
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