Finding a perfect spot called Home

Come May and I will be homeless, once again. After experiencing and failing to find effective ways to adjust to a life in provincial India with 12 hour power-cuts a day, I am heading to the big cities this summer. My May plans take me to Delhi and then Bombay.

Weeks of waiting to get a confirmed railway ticket kept me away from summer travel. Now that I have a ticket, a workable travel plan and a few scheduled meetings, I have cold feet. I am leaving the city I now call home. I am beginning to feel comfortable with it's people and landscape. And although, I am moving away from the sounds of screeching-honking bikes, urchins singing the latest 'Akshay Kumar' song, Mrs. Yadav's son playing loud music at 6 A.M, blasting generators and random visitors, I am also moving away from the world outside and inside of narrow lanes surrounding my haveli. My house named after a Banarasi poet is a known landmark of the city. Ratnakar Villa overlooks a lovely garden tended to lovingly by my landlady and her devoted maali who stays long after his working hours. The house is warm and naturally lit in the winters and airy in the summers. I worked hard to personalize the house by buying new furniture and upholstery. The long and mostly frustrating process of putting together the house piece-by-piece was an acid test. After the house came together in December, I felt confident that I could survive Uttar Pradesh.

I am again moving to an unknown space that needs to be home. After having converted and called 'University Guest Houses' in Gujarat, a 170 sq ft. space above a train track in Delhi, an archaic looking 'two-room set' in Nizamuddin West as home, I am now excited to find a new home. My sense of having a home is all about having a perfect spot where you get a good night's sleep and read a book before that good night's sleep.