It’s so good to know there are companions on this boat! I am relieved that someone resonated with the piece. Thank you so much for reading and sharing the wonderful Maya Angelou quote. It’s indeed perfect! :)
You've captured the dilemma so well, Payal. Really liked this piece. Made me think of the kind of home related ambivalence that I experience. One in which although you haven't moved around during childhood, your family comes from a different cultural context than the city you grew up in. True for many Indians too.
A home-quote I like is by Naguib Mahfouz who said, "Home is where all attempts to escape cease"
I am so glad you could relate with the piece, Ayush. And yes, good point! I can imagine always feeling a bit out of place or conscious of our different-ness when growing up in a city with another culture practiced within the house.
Thank you so much for your words and sharing that quote. It’s a beautiful way of putting things.
I don’t know if I’ll find a definitive answer to home but Srinath Perur captured the feeling of foreignness I tried to get at in a full article in just 2 paragraphs. I wanted to include it in the article but it would have become too long:
Rejith is a large, fiercely dark-skinned man with a thick moustache. He's built along classical lines, possessing the sort of heftiness that is admired in South India as 'good personality'. He's not so much pot-bellied as barrel-stomached: his middle is a taut sloping orb that suggests balance, stability and content. He wears a precision-ironed light blue shirt, sleeves rolled casually to mid-forearm. On his left wrist is a sturdy watch with a loose gold-plated bracelet. His mundu is daintily aproned-up above his knees. His English is patchy and fashioned entirely from Malayalam syllables. He delivers his commentary in an indistinct take-it-or-leave-it mumble that makes it evident that he's not in the least awed by his international audience. Despite living in a place where the winds of other cultures have blown forcefully and for as long as anyone can remember, Rejith seems so completely of this land, so at ease with his place in it, that I can't help being a little envious.
My own cultural roots can be said to run wider than they run deep. It's tempting to see here the foreign hand of our late colonizers, in whose wake I wore a tie to school and spoke exclusively in English there. Early on, I found I could lose myself in books, and these books were almost always set in the UK or the US. For a few hours a day, I'd travel to imaginary worlds that had little resemblance to what was around me. It may be that this early practice has served me well: these days, I manage to travel physically as well, and find myself vaguely at home no matter where I am. But it is also true that I am at least something of a tourist everywhere; there is no place where I feel entirely at home, as I imagine Rejith does here.
I’m in the same boat. Frequently questioning the meaning of home and where I belong. This piece resonated with me so much! Thanks.
I love this quote by Maya Angelou which aptly describes it -
"So here you are,
Too foreign for home
Too foreign for here.
Never enough for both.”
It’s so good to know there are companions on this boat! I am relieved that someone resonated with the piece. Thank you so much for reading and sharing the wonderful Maya Angelou quote. It’s indeed perfect! :)
You've captured the dilemma so well, Payal. Really liked this piece. Made me think of the kind of home related ambivalence that I experience. One in which although you haven't moved around during childhood, your family comes from a different cultural context than the city you grew up in. True for many Indians too.
A home-quote I like is by Naguib Mahfouz who said, "Home is where all attempts to escape cease"
I am so glad you could relate with the piece, Ayush. And yes, good point! I can imagine always feeling a bit out of place or conscious of our different-ness when growing up in a city with another culture practiced within the house.
Thank you so much for your words and sharing that quote. It’s a beautiful way of putting things.
I don’t know if I’ll find a definitive answer to home but Srinath Perur captured the feeling of foreignness I tried to get at in a full article in just 2 paragraphs. I wanted to include it in the article but it would have become too long:
Rejith is a large, fiercely dark-skinned man with a thick moustache. He's built along classical lines, possessing the sort of heftiness that is admired in South India as 'good personality'. He's not so much pot-bellied as barrel-stomached: his middle is a taut sloping orb that suggests balance, stability and content. He wears a precision-ironed light blue shirt, sleeves rolled casually to mid-forearm. On his left wrist is a sturdy watch with a loose gold-plated bracelet. His mundu is daintily aproned-up above his knees. His English is patchy and fashioned entirely from Malayalam syllables. He delivers his commentary in an indistinct take-it-or-leave-it mumble that makes it evident that he's not in the least awed by his international audience. Despite living in a place where the winds of other cultures have blown forcefully and for as long as anyone can remember, Rejith seems so completely of this land, so at ease with his place in it, that I can't help being a little envious.
My own cultural roots can be said to run wider than they run deep. It's tempting to see here the foreign hand of our late colonizers, in whose wake I wore a tie to school and spoke exclusively in English there. Early on, I found I could lose myself in books, and these books were almost always set in the UK or the US. For a few hours a day, I'd travel to imaginary worlds that had little resemblance to what was around me. It may be that this early practice has served me well: these days, I manage to travel physically as well, and find myself vaguely at home no matter where I am. But it is also true that I am at least something of a tourist everywhere; there is no place where I feel entirely at home, as I imagine Rejith does here.
Thanks so much for sharing that Payal. I think it echoes what I feel!