It has been a year since I last visited Chennai. You know how it is! When one is away from one's home (now, which one is this? I have three - the home where my mom is, my husband's home and my home in Goa) - I would call it the Chennai home, the place where I grew up, studied, loved, lost and finally left after getting married. Well, staying away from Chennai makes me yearn for it - pining would be a strong word, perhaps longing would fit - Chennai in my imagination is all mellow and soft with edges burnt with the flame of nostalgia and preserved smells like a template. I go ooh and aah and let out sighs and sounds of emotional outbursts to the great amusement and anger of my sibling who finds my gushing a bit above the prescribed limits. I don't mind those admonitions feeling only happiness and loaded sentiments.
Then the heat gets on to you - First it touches you, you brush it off; Then it spreads across, smothering you, you try to ignore it; It coerces you to say it, I suppress the words;
Finally, I spit it out - "It is so hot! Goa is not so hot!"
The entire bubble of emotions and nostalgia goes away, Woosh! Then another wave of nostalgia fills the gaping hole of the previous one - Well, this wave is the grand narrative of heat nostalgia - Of how it used to be hot those days and we did not bother but now the heat is unbearable and that we have become creatures of comfort and that we were better off without internet, blah blah and that we read and played and ate chilly-*^%$ing-mangoes! Ah! Have you experienced nostalgia fatigue - where one nostalgia replaces another and finally you wonder whether the reality that you are living is much better.
Coming home is always lovely - until your imagination wears off and you itch to get back to your regime and routine.
Assessing my states of mind sometimes I wonder what is the home that I am longing for - this is a perennially running question in my mind - whether home is a place, person, emotion or imagination and I wonder whether I will ever get an answer.
I wish it was as simple as clicking 'Home' on Facebook and watching the people on your list ranting, raving, expressing and lying.
Then the heat gets on to you - First it touches you, you brush it off; Then it spreads across, smothering you, you try to ignore it; It coerces you to say it, I suppress the words;
Finally, I spit it out - "It is so hot! Goa is not so hot!"
The entire bubble of emotions and nostalgia goes away, Woosh! Then another wave of nostalgia fills the gaping hole of the previous one - Well, this wave is the grand narrative of heat nostalgia - Of how it used to be hot those days and we did not bother but now the heat is unbearable and that we have become creatures of comfort and that we were better off without internet, blah blah and that we read and played and ate chilly-*^%$ing-mangoes! Ah! Have you experienced nostalgia fatigue - where one nostalgia replaces another and finally you wonder whether the reality that you are living is much better.
Coming home is always lovely - until your imagination wears off and you itch to get back to your regime and routine.
Assessing my states of mind sometimes I wonder what is the home that I am longing for - this is a perennially running question in my mind - whether home is a place, person, emotion or imagination and I wonder whether I will ever get an answer.
I wish it was as simple as clicking 'Home' on Facebook and watching the people on your list ranting, raving, expressing and lying.