Call me Dreamer: Houses & Homes, Forests & Gardens

Can anyone relate?

If I had to definitively pick a “home”, I would not pick the house in Houston. Out of the 15 or so houses I’ve lived in so far, Houston has been the longest. There are many memories attached to that house, but they are all from a very specific period in my life. A time I’m glad I went through, but I would not want to return to. If I did have to pick a time/house to return to, it would be, without a doubt, Balikpapan, Indonesia or PMC (Pantai Mentari Compound).

But, what is home? And what makes a home, a home? I am a strong believer in "people make the place" which is why I still retain fond memories of Indonesia. But adhering to reality's timescale, Indonesia only covers a slice of my life that would be less than half the size of my Houston slice.

The only place where I retain memories of any given time in my life would be my grandparents’ respective houses in Kolkata. My mom’s side shifted houses around 2002 and my dad’s side shifted in late 2004. I don’t remember the previous house on my mom’s side at all, but my dad’s side I have some vague memories supported with photographs and stories I’ve been told. However, their current houses have definitely become constant fixtures in my life where the variables are always changing. Every year I come to Kolkata in the summer, sometimes we come twice a year, winter and summer.

And like every year, this summer, once again, I have traded in the dry humidity of Houston for the sweltering monsoon humidity of Kolkata.

Everything and everyone feels stuck in time-myself included-in the city of joy (Kolkata). It takes little to no effort to recall my younger self playing with my aunt’s makeup on my grandma, rolling the dice for ludo or snakes and ladders, playing chess, organizing the spice jars in the balcony cabinet, watching Power Rangers or Galactik Football, standing between the handlebars on my grandpa’s motorcycle and begging him to please let me drive it, or hearing stories about clever and wise yet flawed animals and princesses and kings and carpenters, and of course the unique food.

The food hasn’t changed while how I spend my time here has gradually changed because of the inevitable consequence of time: age. I’ve gotten older and it’s not like my grandparents have gotten younger and we are meeting at a halfway point.

I don’t know which year it exactly happened, but one summer I came and it just felt different. Suddenly, I wasn’t a kid anymore and I couldn’t do kid things because there was no one to do it with and I didn’t know how to talk to my grandparents otherwise. I didn’t know what to talk to them about, however, they’d become sad if I didn’t spend time with them. For a couple of years, the gap between what our relationship was and what it had become was personally frustrating and it really hurt me because I was extremely close to all 4 of them in my own way.

I thought the relationship between grandparents and grandkids should be what we had before and I loved that “us” so much that when our relationship changed, I liked coming to Kolkata less and less. Unlike my parents, who grew up in Kolkata, went to school, then college, got married, and then moved out, I don’t have that kind of deep attachment to this place where certain roads and street shops fill me up with nostalgia. For me, the love of this city was and always will be because of my grandparents. There was no one my age in the summers at either apartment complex. Other family members live scattered across the city or state or even the country, but I see them maybe once or twice during the summer. Day in and day out, I would spend time with my grandparents. There was no one else to talk to, but as a kid, I didn’t mind it because it was so much fun. As I grew older, that changed and I wasn’t as happy anymore and coming back "home" became a burden rather than something I anticipated.

At some point, I realized they were just happy that I was spending time with them and I had to change. I had to take initiative for our relationship to work. I had to talk to them first. If not, this home too would become another house and we’d live our lives skating by each other without getting to know each other all over again each summer. After all, each year, I was the one who changed not them.

Hi everyone! How is everyone doing? I hope you enjoyed this post :)
(I wrote this post over the summer, but I ended up never posting)
Once again, I'm back with a Spring Vibes playlist

Spring Vibes Playlist:

1. Red Hot Chilli Peppers- Otherside