another alone, continents away
delhi, april 2016: i’m closing in on 7 years in this city now. but more often than not, it’s never made me belong— never a part of anything, always an outsider looking in, never being able to sustain interest or pace with the view.
it is this quality that makes us out-of-towners subconsciously desperate to find a home. you make it in little secret fold-out places in nooks and crannies of the city’s old fort walls. or you make it in the little, tiny eyes and hearts of some people.
but when your bones stretch your skin out from within, and you want to grow, grow, grow, you become the little peepul tree trying to break roots out of the fort-walls, or the ever dreaming home-dweller soul looking for a roof as high as the sky, and a driveway as long as the horizon.
but delhi has no sky. it only has a blanket of smoke rising from streams of angry, tired traffic. but sometimes— just a few days in a year— it clears up for the perfect spring sky. blue, with sunlight only hitting the backs of green leaves, never your eyes or the metal rims of the many parked, traffic-weary cars.
as 2014 drew to a close, even in the dense, smoggy air of delhi, i found my own personal little spring skies. it offered a roof as high as the sky, and a driveway as long as the horizon.
as 2014 drew a comforter around itself one autumn night, i found a fort that would let this little peepul tree break its roots out from whatever part of its walls as it pleased, promising to be strong and hold its own with the little growing peepul, all through.
for the first time in 7 years, i wasn’t looking for a home. i was being encouraged to make one in myself.
and that’s the best company to come back home to.