Back in Bangalore….. after three months of being away…. have seen the length and breadth of the country in these three months….. feels good to be back home….
Home….
It is true that Bangalore is home….. it is the closest to home…… where my husband and I work and live…. For now…. But what does Bangalore hold for me beyond a rented house and a job ? Where are my roots ?
In Madras where my parents live ? Where I went to school and college ? Where I have no friends left ? Or where my father hails from – an obscure town in Tamilnadu he has not visited in forty years ? Where are my roots ?
I have a friend who hails from Andhra Pradesh (his parents now live in Vizag; he has never lived in AP), grew up in Madras, has worked in Bombay, Delhi, Hyderabad and is now in Bangalore. When someone asks him, where are you from, he gives his unique beatific smile. Where are my roots ? is a question he is fond of posing to himself…..
Surely enough, to our generation, where are the roots ? (I don’t know how many of us are even interested in finding our roots but that is a different issue). What does any place hold for us beyond immediate and relevant concerns such as work or parents.
What does Madras mean to me personally beyond my parents ? If they choose to move away now, the place itself has nothing left for me….
I had Indian friends at the LSE who were content in their knowledge that their roots lay back in India. But for me living back in India, where does my search lead ?