Six months ago, I moved (back) to Pune - the city where I’ve spent the most uninterrupted time of my life growing up. It’s also the city where I spent my college years. My connection to Pune is fairly obvious to anyone with an outside perspective. When I moved out of Pune, I came back in a couple of years for college. When I left again, I (unintentionally) happened to start dating someone who also lived in Pune. So, I’ve been doing back and forth for as long as I can remember but this time things are weirder because we’ve officially moved back into the house where I grew up. After exactly ten years.
It’s surprising because none of us (our little family of four) ever imagined we’d come back. Neither did our acquaintances and family friends. There’s nothing inherently shocking about this new development except that we simply never imagined this reality. So, almost every week you’ll hear the same words come fresh out of someone’s mouth - “I can’t believe we’re here again.” It’s quite funny.
Revisiting a place after a whole decade is a strange experience. Faces are known, but older. The corners, the benches, the lamp posts - all feel familiar yet unknown. I walk around with memories of the Old Me playing on loop until I am forced to make it stop because I must make conversation.
For the most part, I have very little recollection of the people who approach me so the small talk actually makes me nervous. Just like my teenage self who used to masterfully sneak around, I’m once again worried my lies will get caught. Still, I make light conversation.
So, how does it feel to be back?
I can’t believe it, I want to say. It’s great! This has always been home.
Is home the place where you recognize everything or the place that recognizes you?
25 years ago, when the millennium was about to change, my parents made a decision to leave their respective hometowns and somehow, just kept going on that path without ever looking back. We moved cities and even more frequently, houses. I’ve never seen my parents wanting to return to any home or city they ever lived in. They were, and continue to be, believers of Moving Forward.
In India, overpopulated cities like ‘Mumbai’ (where I had been for the past few years) are considered the epitome of this Moving Forward journey. Naturally, many of the stray conversations I’ve been having have revolved around this. People who haven’t left this place for almost two decades, will excitedly ask me - So, what do you prefer: Mumbai or Pune?
Pune is more comfortable, of course - is my kind response. Kind to them, kind to me.
They’re still not satisfied. But Mumbai is better, no? Very fast? Here it’s very slow.
As my parents enter their 50s, their Moving Forward spirit is still quite alive. However, after 25+ years of always moving, never staying still, the exhaustion is now slowly approaching.
Sometimes I wonder what’s a better deal: to stick around and wonder or to leave and find out.
Still, kindness and warmth have found me. Let me show you how.
On a random Saturday morning, my mom drags me to the temple. Just as I’m following her around, I hear someone call my name. It’s an old friend from school/10 years ago. We make small talk; he makes it a point to tell me that he reads my infrequent writing. I’m filled with joy that keeps me going for days.
I meet up with one of my childhood best friends for a post-dinner walk. I’m not sure how the conversations will flow but the laughter comes even before the words. She tells me a pointless story about the time I kept my bag on a big fancy car’s bonnet and bent down to tie my shoelaces without realizing that the driver was in the vehicle. It’s a vivid memory for her even though I don’t remember it. I’m filled with longing for lost time, with love for a friendship that transcends time, with gratitude for a life that has been. Few things are as special as someone remembering something extremely random about you.
I meet up with another childhood best friend. We get together one afternoon and collectively try to calm each other’s Sunday Scaries. She brings me coffee after work one day. Every time I see her, I’m reminded of the privilege it is to experience coinciding adult lives with someone you’ve also experienced your overdramatic-but-character-defining teenage years with.
At a party, this girl, who has lived in Pune her entire life, tells me how much she loves the familiarity of being in one place forever, of being still. She loves knowing all the winding roads, greeting the familiar faces of vendors right outside where she stays, and passing by new spots just so she can remember the structure that stood there before. I nod with appreciation and empathy. My boyfriend speaks the same language. Have they figured it out?