The Odyssey for a Home
Life always finds a way. But where does this path lead?
My father used to talk about a time, from the sepia-tinted lens of his life, when he had to leave home. But he has a home. A home in which we’ve lived. So, what did he leave behind?
“Back in the day” is how it began. And always begins. Usually a tale of extravagant comparisons of the simple, sensible village life painted over the canvas of urban comforts. But back in those days, there was a home. His home. Or rather, a place he’d call his home.
Strange, is it not, for a human to get attached to earthy constructs that, in most cases, outlive the human span?
My mother has a similar tale. Four residences counted on the tip of her fingers; two from her time with her family, and two with her time with her family.
And so, like a bumbling idiot, I ask the question that has no answer: What is a home? And how many do I have?
All this is baked in who we are, though. For a species that started out as hunter-gatherers, the idea of planting feet and building settlements is relatively new on the geological timescale. But it did happen. Humans settled. Once. Then again. Everywhere. Maybe even all at once.
Yet here we are, the biped of the animal kingdom, still leaving dust in our wakes and grappling for a sight for home. Just as unsure at every step as our ancestors were.
Back in the day, and you’ll know how this millennial is about to romanticise his past, there was this song from my parents’ generation that I latched on to: Ae mere pyaare watan (lit. Oh my beloved nation) from the 1961 film Kabuliwala (lit. one from Kabul). Sung in rueful notes with quivering punches of mourning by the great Manna Dey, the lyrics taint the listener with an ache that never goes.
Oh, my beloved nation Oh my long-lost garden-paradise I offer my heart to you.
This trader from Kabul only wanted to earn well enough for his family. All he ever pines for, however, is to go back. To the land where his daughter awaits. A land he lusts after. Trusts for. Would die for. Would have to die for. His home.
But he’s on an odyssey. Will he ever complete it?
The lyrics, and I do urge you to visit them if you can, still bring tears to my eyes. The song and its poetic ballet are a penance. A prayer. An offering. A hope. The last of its kind.
Homer knew this. Or at least I am inclined to believe that he must have. Whereas he began an epic drama against the backdrop of the Mediterranean world of antiquity, the sea that eats up the shores of this world became the defining backdrop for the end of his saga. Why else would one pen a protagonist so smart only to break them completely?
It’s easy to blame the gods for Odysseus’ turmoil, particularly with the events of the Iliad in hindsight. But were they really responsible? After all, the king of Ithaca willingly left to fight a battle for a cause he believed in. To provide for his family. A family he doesn’t know he’ll be able to see again.
You can chart his actions against the morality meters of modern storytelling and find Odysseus lacking. There’s no denying that. You can, and for good measure, fling the blame on Circe, Calypso, the sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, or even the cyclops Polyphemus. Or nobody, in particular. But the long sail through the turbulent Mediterranean was the perfect canvas for Homer to paint the idyllic times of war, action, and youth as a contrast that faded away for his protagonist.
Did he find his Kabul? His home?
The Ithaca of the past will never return, will it? Nor will Penelope find her youth again. Telemachus grew without his father, and even Cronos could not undo it.
Then, there’s the question of homes that he did find, only to abandon in pursuit of what he remembered. For the length of the battle against Troy, the shores of Ilium and their many-oared ships were home. And then? Polyphemus’ cave, Circe’s bed, the floating island of Ogygia, and even the sea itself were homes. Homes that he could lead a life—at least in two of them, to be honest.
Sadly, there was a siren song. Not the one he willingly heard, but one that his heart had played on a lyre, wrapped in the aches of longing, to enchant his senses away from reality.
We’ve left your land for good and come far away to worlds unknown and yet, there’s but one wish a promise to your motes that where we’d sprouted from is where we shall die.
The odyssey never ends. Today, I long for a home I left behind, a home that was only the second dwelling of my lifetime in the city. What do I truly miss, then? Is it not audacious to map my longing to a home I’ve lived in for a measly four years to that of my father’s? His scars probably know the shadows of the cracks in the cemented structure he sweetly pangs for.
Or is it the streets? The area around them? The people?
When I close my eyes, a different Udaipur washes ashore. I recognise it instantly. Memories of that first love leave goosebumps on my skin: A complex arrangement of pigeonhole flats painted in white and mauve. Narrow roads bordered by fields echoing with undulating cackles of laughter. A cycle to the school that passes through a dried-up river and a crematorium. Those temple bells of Lord Shiva’s abode in the mountains. The silhouettes of the cathedral next to the school gates under mournful clouds. On-time midday prayers from the mosque next to the school, melding with cicada hums outside the classrooms. That violent heatwave I’d always avoid by locking myself away. That summer fest of games played on Windows 98 and XP, with friends or with my soul. Promising winters to dry out the skin. Birdcalls in lazy sunlight, of sunbirds, koels, bulbuls, and crows. The feeling of my swollen feet circumambulating the Fateh Sagar lake. Raindrop signals for fried fritters with that hint of onion. Only in that home. A home I lived in.
The present is, for lack of a better word, not much of a present. But only because I’m trying to run these brushstrokes of my then-suburban life against the canvas of Hyderabad’s uber-urban glamour.
For now, it’ll have to do. I am content with my Ogygia, to float with it to waters unknown. Where to? I don’t know. It’s not like the home I think of remains. My father never returned, nor did my mother. Their odyssey lives on in me.
I did make a promise, though. To my Ithaca, my Kabul, my Udaipur.
Your mornings, the most beautiful your eves, the most colourful I offer my heart to you.
