Coming home

Home.

The word is one with many meanings. Some simple, some nuanced. All subjective.

For diaspora populations, the idea of home can be especially complex and confusing.

At a recent gathering in the US, local South Asians presented short oral tales on the theme ‘coming home’. Inspired by these stories, the vignettes below are part fiction, part non-fiction.

I came here as a postgraduate student. I’d often stay at the library late into the night. Long after most students had gone home, this unkempt lady would come in, lie on a sofa and go to sleep.

She made me uncomfortable. I don’t know why.

Actually, I probably do… She was dirty and homeless.

Once she tried to talk to me at the cafeteria. I escaped the conversation as quickly as I could.

Later, I graduated, but couldn’t find work straight away.

So I crashed in a friend’s apartment, sleeping on the floor. This arrangement lasted a few weeks, until his landlord found out and kicked me out.

Penniless, at night I would go to the campus library, find some cushions, lay them on a floor in a small room, and sleep.

The cleaning lady would wake me up every morning at 5am, before anyone could catch me. It was our little secret.

Everyone needs to make a home somewhere. Don’t judge another’s home.

I’ve gone through it dozens of times, with nary an issue. But I still feel a sinking dread every time I’m in the immigration line at any US airport.

I think to myself ‘Perhaps this is it, this is when he (baddies are always a ‘he’ in your imagination) will say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in.”’ It doesn’t matter that all your papers are in order. It doesn’t matter that there’s no justifiable reason not to let you in. It’s a fear.

I remember my first trip back after getting my citizenship. I stood, for the first time, in the line for US citizens. Perhaps, as a result, I was also a little less anxious.

The immigration officer went through the formalities. Then, just before he handed back my passport, he asked, “So, how long do you plan to stay in the US?”

A little dumbfounded, I paused and said, “I’m a US citizen. This is my home!”

“Well, why did you go to India then?”

Can you really call a place ‘home’, when coming home engenders a sense of alienation?

I moved to the US several decades back for my master’s. And, as so many do, I stayed on afterwards. Over the years I’ve made regular trips back to Bangladesh. Each time I noticed small changes, but there was no doubt that Bangladesh was home and the US just a place where I lived.

Then, on a visit a few years back, something dawned. The Bangladesh of my childhood, the Bangladesh that I had left long ago, didn’t actually exist any longer. Sure, I had changed, but Bangladesh had changed much much more.

Religious extremism creeping into everyday life is what hurts me the most. No longer do people refer to themselves as ‘Bangla’ as they did back when I was growing up there, before Bangladesh became an independent nation. Today, people refer to themselves as ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’.

I recently discovered a local nonprofit working on improving the lives of slum dwellers in Dhaka. I’ve found joy in immersing himself in this work. Home is now well and truly the US, though the link to Dhaka through my work is an integral part of my life.

Home is a genuine connection to what matters.

I was checking out the listings at the NYC South Asian Film Festival and saw a documentary titled Lucky Irani Circus. And, I was instantly transported back to my childhood…

We lived in Delhi in the 1980s. Every Saturday afternoon, without fail, my dad would make us all sit around the radio and listen to an hour of Awaaz De Kahaan Hai from Radio Pakistan.

Lahore was his birthplace. Along with millions of others, he migrated from one side of Punjab to the other during the horrors of partition. This radio show was his one lasting connection to home.

If there’s one thing I remember from these weekly listening sessions is this painfully annoying ad for Lucky Irani Circus. It was awful. And, consequently, unforgettable. The jingle advertising three horses, two lions and one elephant (how is that even a good circus?) entered my head and has been stuck somewhere in the recesses of my memory ever since.

So, there you have it. One moment, I wanted to see what was playing at a film festival in NYC; the next moment I was home.

Home is a memory you carry with you wherever you go.

I was sitting in transit at some major airport, on my way back home to the US.

I’d spent the past two years as Peace Corps volunteer in a remote South Pacific island.

Presently, a large group of Indians approached and sat at the nearby gate. I smiled. I hadn’t seen a single person who looked like me in the past two years.

A young man (not from this group) came over and tried to strike up a conversation. I realized soon enough that I didn’t want to talk to him, but found it hard to extricate myself. This went on for some minutes.

I glanced towards the Indian group. And made eye contact with this aunty who was already looking my way. I could tell she sensed what was up. Immediately, she summoned with a wave and a shout, and I rushed over with a big smile on my face, and nearly a tear in my eye.

At that moment I wanted nothing more than to be surrounded by this group of Indians, joining their conversations and sharing their snacks.

Home is that which is most familiar.

My father’s always been a big influence on my life.

He identifies as a Pakistani. He identifies as a Muslim.

He also enjoys a pepperoni pizza with three whiskies. He’s married three blonde American women. And divorced them all.

Go figure.

While the connection to Pakistan is not something I’ve felt, the connection to Islam is one I’ve actively pursued. Social justice is my passion.

A couple of years back I was offered a job with the world’s largest Islamic aid agency.

When I announced this to my girlfriend and some friends, I thought they would be excited for me. But, instead, they were confused. Why would you want to do that? You’re white!

I didn’t take the job. I left my girlfriend, and have been traveling around the country ever since, trying to discover myself.

Home is a place you’re always searching for.

We’ve all heard the question Where are you from? Probably a million times.

For some of us, even after years of practice, answering it is a source of confusion and frustration.

Sometimes we have fun with it. “Texas,” we say. Or “Sydney.” This is only partly in jest, of course, because often we give this answer because it really is where we feel we are ‘from’.

Sometimes we try to figure out what exactly the questioner might mean. Ethnicity? Birthplace? Nationality?

But really, what the questioner is asking when s/he says Where are you from is this: Why are you brown?

Generally, we give different answers based on the context.

Home is simply being able to answer the question “Where are you from?”

When I look back on my life in the US, I always think of it as a journey of milestones. More specifically, one where it was always the next milestone that would be the big one. Once I crossed that I’d be — perhaps not home — but at least, you know, set in the US.

First it was graduating from master’s. Then it was getting a job. Then the Green Card. Getting married. Buying a house. Having a kid. Getting citizenship.

Today, I can unequivocally say that the US is my home. But, looking back, I couldn’t actually tell you when it happened. Just somewhere along this journey of milestones, the US became home and India stopped being so.

Home is somewhere you realize you are long after you’ve been there.

I grew up in Minneapolis and, while I very much felt at home in the city, I never felt the same connection to Minneapolis that I always sensed my mother felt to her home — Andhra.

Every few months my mother would receive one of those blue aerogram envelopes (remember them?) from India. For her, the feeling of home was palpable in the joyful reading, word by word, of those aerograms.

I envied my mother.

Minneapolis was home, yes, but growing up there, there was always this feeling that you were an outsider. My mother never felt that in Andhra.

As an adult I’ve moved around and lived in many different places over the years. After some time, some started to feel like home; others stopped doing so. Ultimately, I’ve realized that I can feel at home wherever I am able to build a community, a circle of acquaintances and friends with whom I feel happy and at ease.

Home is a place you take with you wherever you go.

I grew up in the US and would visit India regularly. But in neither place did the locals accept me as a local. In the US, I was an Indian. In India, I was an American.

Eventually, as an adult, I realized that home is a place you need to accept for yourself, not a place where you wait for others to accept you.

Define your own home; don’t let it be externally imposed.