Home Is Everything
Yet another absurd title, considering what I’m planning to write about. I still hope it’s justified (by itself) by the end. I started 'typing' this article back in mid-2006 (on July 2, 2006 - to be precise). Not sure what stopped me from completing and publishing, I guess I had to move to Bangalore to realize the need.
Talking of the background, I thought of writing over this whole ‘home’ context soon after I happened to watch two of the greatest Hollywood movies in a very short span of time – Syriana and Munich (thanks to Pushkar’s keen interest and faith in Hollywood). They’re independently great movies with very limited things in common. One thing that attracted all my attention though, was the element of ‘Terrorism’ and its aspects portrayed in them.
Syriana showed the ‘making’ of individuals turned to terrorists, while Munich briefly discussed why one would take the tough road of terrorism – that would lead to a life full of hatred, violence, blood, and painful struggle. In one of the scenes in Munich (not so surprisingly – a Steven Spielberg movie), one of ‘those’ guys tells Avner (the lead actor – Eric Bana) how ‘they’ did it all for home and how they were willing to continue and stay away from home for centuries to follow – just to ‘save’ their Home from the ‘bad’. He concludes by saying ‘…after all, Home – is everything!’ and Avner – fighting the terrorists – is speechless. Anyway.
Completely away from this context (and now I can’t even recall why), but somehow, this led me to think about all those people living away from home, still trying to stay connected. Speaking of Indians abroad (NRIs - as named officially), I’ve always had the due respect for them, less the fact that they are NOT in India – the Home. Watching these movies somewhere made me rethink if it (settling away from home) was really as unjustifiable as I always thought.
I soon moved to Pune the same season, and surprisingly, this whole line of thinking just evaporated. Probably because, all these years in Pune, I never felt so far from home. Having recently moved to Bangalore, I have all the time (and distance) to realize what it’s like being away from Home. Be it one of these recent occasions I couldn’t attend to, or the Gujaratis (and NOT Gujarathis, please) in Bengaluru trying to simulate the same Navratri tempo and aura. Not that I was forced into being here, moving here was a completely sane decision and it has made great sense. And it brings me back to thinking – and ACCEPTING – the fact that people make decisions for some reasons. The idea is to ‘accept and respect’ their decisions – whatever that may be, rather than challenging them, compelling for justification.
Probably, I’m still getting used to not being in Pune. It may actually be a mix of emotions and other external factors acting on me. The infrastructure. Public transport. One more is this ‘Disney OSTs’ CD I’ve been playing in my car, for quite some time now. ‘There’s a place called home’ from ‘Christmas Carol’ has been stuck in my mind. Same songs, same car, different roads!
I know it will only get better with time. Patience is the key!