Is it a home if it only exists in the imagination?
'Delhi is awfully dry,' explained a Belgian man who had lived and worked in the city for many years when asked why he was moving back home. When a friend told me this anecdote, I could instantly relate. The enforced greenery was oxymoronically brown, the leaves never glistening with the bounty of the monsoon or the much-maligned rains that nourish the beauty of the English countryside of my teenage years.
There were other sorts of dryness, too: The local branch of a famous Chennai-based eatery whose masala dosas — too crisp, with an entirely alienated filling sitting awkwardly somewhere inside — lacked what an empathetic friend described as 'the creamy oneness of the masala and the dosa'. The mausoleums of kings long gone, who had never conquered as far as the land of my ancestors, rose detached from the unartful, modern cityscape. The sea was further away than it had ever been. Even the heat was, perhaps fortunately, dry. The only relationship to be had with such a place was an equally dry one: Purely transactional, for the sake of a job.
Chennai for a few years, Amsterdam for a year were, metaphorically and literally, wetter; there was certainly more perspiration in the former. But varying degrees of linguistic and cultural alienation, and above all, reclusiveness and a life lived internally, put paid to any notion of forging a connection. There was much to explore, much that was genuinely of historical, cultural or aesthetic interest, and most of it was left unexplored. There was no inspiration, no capturing of the imagination. Just as one can have an intimate relationship with a city, it's also possible to have none at all.
It may be a question of belonging. In the back alleys and crevices of my mind, paved by the cobblestones of one medium-sized town after another — the successive homes of my childhood — there was always a faint but insistent pull towards half-mythical rural roots. Towards family and forefathers, and neighbours who could tell stories of them all. Temples built in time immemorial, always with a pond and a banyan tree, where I might never venture but which should certainly be there. The smell of the Arabian Sea and its waves lapping at the shore. The white sands of my father's home, the tall trees he had planted and the second-hand memory of the paddy fields he crossed to get to school, which I was born too late to see. The thought of living permanently in that place — no longer truly rural but built up, just another grey, traffic-ridden speck in the giant conurbation that runs the length of Kerala — was always a mere velleity.
Growing up, family and the occasional visit to the family home were the only constants. There were no permanent friends, schools or hometowns, and many years were spent abroad as a 'Generation 1.5' immigrant — those who move as children after having spent a few years in their country of birth, but come of age in the host country. Assimilation wasn't easy; there was an accent, among other things, in the way. National identity evolved, went to war with itself and eventually dissolved into something less proud and more global. What remained was an affinity for a village imagined from afar, a region, a culture, a language and its history; all this became something to cling to in the absence of anything more definite.
Cities barely figured, either in life or the imagination. Even when they rudely shoved their way into my life by way of the exigencies of work, they remained peripheral to my thought. My experience of them was that of a transient, flitting through and making do for a few years. There was certainly no sense of belonging to one, of knowing all its ways and secrets. I can live in a city for years without making a true home. Does that mean one can have a home that exists only in the imagination, and that there are other ways of belonging, beyond urban and rural, of in-betweens and might-have-beens?
rohan.manoj@expressindia.com
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
TS ICET 2025 answer key releasing today at icet.tgche.ac.in; check steps to download and next steps
The Telangana Council of Higher Education (TGCHE), formerly known as TSCHE, is set to release the Telangana Integrated Common Entrance Test (TS ICET or TG ICET) 2025 answer key today, June 21. Along with the provisional answer key, the council is also likely to publish the question papers and candidates' response sheets on the official website: . As per the council, candidates will be allowed to raise objections to the provisional key between June 22 and June 26 by paying a fee of ₹500 per question. If a challenge is found to be valid, the raised objection will be considered during result processing, and the fee will be refunded. The TS ICET 2025 result is scheduled to be announced on Monday, July 7, 2025. How to Download TS ICET Answer Key 2025 Visit the official website: Click on the link for the provisional answer key Log in using your credentials Live Events Submit the details and download the answer key for reference The entrance exam was held on June 8 and 9, with two shifts each day — the first shift from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM and the second shift from 2:30 PM to 5:00 PM. Section A (Analytical Ability): Questions were available in English & Telugu or English & Urdu. Section B (Mathematical Ability): Provided in both English & Telugu and English & Urdu. Section C (Communication Ability): Questions were in English only. TS ICET 2025 was conducted in computer-based test (CBT) mode for admissions into MBA and MCA programs at universities in Telangana and their affiliated institutions.
Hindustan Times
4 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
TS ICET answer key 2025 today at icet.tgche.ac.in, how to check
TS ICET Answer Key 2025: The Telangana Council of Higher Education (TGCHE, previously TSCHE) will release the Telangana Integrated Common Entrance Test (TS ICET or TG ICET) answer key 2025 today, June 21. Along with the answer key, the council is also expected to release question papers and display candidates' responses. TS ICET answer key 2025 today at (Getty Images/iStockphoto/ Representational image) Also read: UGC NET answer key 2025 news live updates When released, candidates can check the Telangana ICET provisional answer key at TGCHE said that candidates can raise objections against the provisional answer key from June 22 to June 26 on the payment of ₹ 500 per question. It added that if an objection is found valid, it will be considered for processing the result and fee collected against it will be refunded. TS ICET result will be declared on Monday, July 7, 2025. Also read: JEECUP Result 2025 Date: UPJEE Polytechnic results today at How to download TS ICET answer key 2025 When released, candidates can download the TS ICET provisional answer key by following these steps- Open the official website, Click on the provisional answer key download link displayed on the home page. Provide your login details. Submit and download the answer key. Also read: RPF Constable result 2025 out at RRB websites, links to check scores, cut-offs The entrance test was conducted on June 8 and 9, in two shifts on both days- first shift was from 10 am to 12.30 pm and the second shift was from 2.30 pm to 5 pm. For section A of the paper (Analytical Ability), questions were in English and Telugu and English and Urdu. For section B or Mathematical Ability too, questions were in English and Telugu and English and Urdu. However, for section C (Communication Ability), questions were in English only. The exam was conducted in Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode for admission to MBA and MCA programmes offered by universities in Telangana and their affiliated colleges. Mahatma Gandhi University, Nalgonda, conducted the exam on behalf of the Telangana Council of Higher Education (TGCHE), Hyderabad.
NDTV
4 hours ago
- NDTV
SSC GD Constable Scorecard 2025 Out, Check Marks And Download PDF; Know What's Next
SSC GD Constable Scorecard 2025 Out: The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) has released the SSC GD Constable Scorecard 2025 on its official portal, Those who appeared in the recruitment exam for Constable (General Duty) positions can now access their scorecards by logging in with their credentials. The exam, conducted between February 4 and February 25 aimed to fill 53,690 vacancies in various Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), the Secretariat Security Force (SSF), the Assam Rifles, and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). The result was earlier announced on June 17 in PDF format, listing the roll numbers of selected candidates. Scorecard release and details The scorecard, released on June 20, contains candidates' performance across subjects including General Intelligence, General Knowledge, Mathematics, and English/Hindi. It includes raw and normalised marks, total correct and incorrect responses, and qualification status for the next stage. The scorecards will remain accessible until July 4, 2025. How To Download SSC GD Constable Scorecard 2025 Candidates can download their scorecards by using the following steps: Visit the SSC's official portal, Click on the link for "SSC GD Scorecard 2025" on the homepage Enter your Registration Number and Date of Birth Fill in the captcha code and log in View and download your scorecard for future reference Information Mentioned on the Scorecard The scorecard includes the following information: Name of Exam and Conducting Authority Candidate's Roll Number and Registration Number Category Exam Date and Shift Marks scored in each section Number of correct and incorrect answers Raw and normalised scores PET/PST eligibility status What's Next? Candidates who have qualified based on the CBT scores will be called for the Physical Efficiency Test (PET), Physical Standard Test (PST), followed by medical examination and document verification.
