Having Two Homes, Yet Having None.

Note: The author is listening to OK Computer whilst writing this article, and would like to apologize in advance for any subsequent melodramatic writing.

I’ll be the first to say it, I love our campus. I stepped foot on it for the first time a year and a half ago, and while I still haven’t gotten to explore a large portion of it (cough, thank you new academic block construction), it didn’t take long for me to see it as I do now, HOME. There’s more to that word though. Simply calling this place my HOME feels like a disservice to the city that raised me for 18 years and the reason I am the person I am today. That city is home. It’s weird to have two homes at once, an almost nomadic feeling that comes about every 6 months, growing stronger with each completed Endsem. The second that I start to feel attached and settled in a place, Rajiv Gandhi and his lovely airport call my name, and I must answer. In this never-ending cycle of back and forth, I’ve been caught in the middle, struggling to figure out the answer to the question ‘Tera Ghar Kahan Hai?’ (Where’s your house?), because the word ‘home’ now has multiple aliases.

What’s in a home?

Coming to IIIT is probably the most transformative experience a large number of us have had in our lives so far. Whether it’s traveling away from home for the first time, the people we meet here, the long-sought-for independence we gain, or the placement package we get one day (hopefully), there’s few things that are so life-defining as the handful of years we spend here. I heard a lot about the importance of your college days and how unforgettable they are, and it was hard to believe back then, but not anymore. The high-school version of me would not believe the person I have become today, the experiences I’ve had, and the outlook I now have on the world. This college is humbling, whether academically, personally, or socially, and that has a significant tangible impact, at least it did for me. No one walks out from here the same as when they came in, and I’d like to think that’s a pretty good thing for the most part. I’ve matured as a person, had the best and worst days of my life, felt every emotion under the sun, met people I want around for a lifetime, gone through the highs and lows of social pressure, competition, relationships, all of it. I’ve even wanted to run away and never come back, and what’s more home-y than that? 

Home is where the heart is, and while I may hate this place with every last fiber of my being, it has a certain charm to it. There’s no place I’ve grown more than here, and its people, opportunities, and shitty academic policies are to thank for that. I doubt I’m likely to ever forget an inch of this campus or the life I’ve lived (and will continue to live) here, and the deep imprint that these 66 tiny acres have left on my heart has no better, more fitting description than HOME.

But, as they say, you never forget your first. Home is a place that heard my first words, and also my goodbyes to my parents as their second and final baby bird left the nest. 

2. Going back home.

I think the concept of mental whiplash was introduced to me when I travelled back home after my first semester. Suddenly, I had regressed into the version of myself I’d known 6 months ago, and somehow, that cycle of regression remains true for every trip home since then. Like yin-and-yang in constant defiance and simultaneous harmony, these two versions of me are completely different people, but co-exist in the same body. For the first time, I felt like a guest in my own home. There was a time limit on the number of days I could stay: an ever-present countdown before I had to leave my family again. Suddenly, there was a shift. Messages from my school friends that they weren’t free to meet because their college was still going on. Having to pay adult fares at exhibitions I wanted to visit. Every street sign with text that read ‘THIS IS NOT YOUR HOME ANYMORE’. It’s a strange feeling to re-visit your childhood haunts with the knowledge that that time is gone, and the slides at the playground don’t feel as large as they used to, and all you can think about now is how hot the metal on that slide gets in the summer instead of when it would be your turn to go next. The pampering of your parents feels suddenly undeserved and overbearing. It’s weird getting breakfast in bed instead of having to groggily walk to Kadamba for 3 cold Idlis. You notice a few more grey hairs on their head than you did the last time you saw them while talking about your last semester, hiding all the details you know they wouldn’t approve of. And, the forced smile that accompanies the hidden tears as they wave goodbye to you at the airport once again is the final cherry on top as you take that godforsaken flight back to Hyderabad. There can never be peace while HOME exists in the back of your mind. Whether that’s the number on your transcript, the anxiety about next sem’s courses, having to get a 13.4 SGPA to get that 8.5 CG you really want, or just meeting your friends again. Going back home is never the same, and it becomes increasingly harder to attach yourself to the same places you’d spend hours in everyday, like old shoes that have started to get too tight, or a bed in which your legs have started to dangle off the edge of. 

Every day is spent deciding which place you want to revisit or which friend you want to hang out with, and suddenly, it’s time to return back to HOME. And when you’re back HOME, not a second is spent without craving to go back home, yet home feels like it could never exist outside the bubble our college exists in. This never-ending cycle consumes me every 6 months, and somehow it never gets easier. Sisyphus must climb his mountain, and I have to board my flight.

3. Having no home, yet having two.

There’s an odd charm about all of this though. CSO taught me that multi-threading is where a computer changes states (processes) depending on which instruction cycle it’s on. I wrote my Endsem and finished the course, but only truly understood what my professor meant when I got off the flight and reached home. The aforementioned cycle of regression and evolution, of belonging and not belonging, home and HOME, has created a deep confusion in my mind. No place feels more home than the one I’m staying in at the moment, but it’s oxymoronic to call more than one place home, isn’t it?

Maybe, I have zero homes altogether.

That train of thought falls apart when l get a hug from my parents when they come to collect me at the airport, or when I get the daily 8:29 AM call from my girlfriend waking me up for class because I overslept, and suddenly, I realize I have 2 homes. Some part of my soul exists in both places simultaneously, and there’s love to be found in each one.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find a balance, and I’m still not there yet, but it’s certainly comforting to know that I can take a 3 hour flight, and still find a place I can call home.