Echoes of a Distant Home - A Sense of Familiarity and Nostalgia

Recently, I had the chance to visit Kanpur for a work trip. Knowing myself, I would never have wanted to step foot there of my own accord unless prompted. Being in Ashoka’s outreach, when I was told that I would be taking care of Uttar Pradesh, my heart sank to depths even the Titanic could not have imagined. How I cursed the fact that no matter where I am in life, UP seems to come back to me in ways I can’t even imagine. Sometimes good, sure, but mostly in ways that just annoy me a tad bit. Fortunately or unfortunately, Kanpur is my hometown.

Kanpur is the city where I was born. It is the city where I grew up. It is the city where even today, I can claim that I have spent the formidable years of my life. Yet, it was never home. It was nothing more than a city where I felt caged, and every moment of my teenage life, I yearned to get out. In fact, for the first few weeks of my first semester in college, I tried to slyly hide the fact that I was originally from Kanpur, instead giving everyone the impression that I was from South Delhi.

So one can imagine that when I was told I’d be handling Uttar Pradesh, what it would have meant for me at that moment. I felt lost. I felt dread. I felt a little angry at the stars that were putting me in that position. But pushing all of those emotions aside, I reminded myself: it’s a commitment I have made that I need to fulfill and execute in the best possible way I can. I could in no way let this get to me or pull me down.

IIT campus, no edits. PC - me

Before I left for the city, someone asked me whether I was excited to go back. In response, all I could think of was a snippet of the blog I had written on homesickness in 2018 that went something like this - “Somehow, my definition seems to be very different from how homesick is normally defined. I don’t really miss the city or its food or people or the lanes that lead to nowhere. I don’t miss my friends (yes, I’m a horrible person like that and I’m sorry), the parks I used to play in when I grew up, or the school classroom where I spent hours thinking about how to burn the place down.” Because I never related to the city, I was also never homesick for the city per se, a fact that thoroughly annoyed and angered my then-boyfriend.

I knew as I landed at Kanpur airport (yes, I was surprised at the fact as well that Kanpur has a functioning passenger airport) that I would not be jumping with joy, but somehow it did not feel strange. To a certain extent, I did feel I had come home. A home that has seen me grow up, a home that gave me my first set of friends, my first loves, my first heartbreaks, my first depressive episode, basically the first of what life has to throw at me - both good and bad. A home does not always have to elicit compassion; it can lead us on the path of nostalgia and maybe that is enough.

In fact, I remember posting something very similar on my Instagram story when I went to the IIT campus. It went like this - ‘Someone asked me - you are going back to Kanpur, you must be excited. All I had in my defence was a meek no because I don’t know what that excitement is. How do I get excited about a place that was home for the majority of my life yet never felt like one? But I did reply by saying I know a huge wave of nostalgia will hit me and that is exactly what happened. As soon as I saw the (IIT) gate, I knew I was back. Back to my childhood, back to my teenage years, back to my major firsts, back to the place where I grew up, back to the place that I always kept coming back to, back whether I wanted to
or not cause it’s my job now. IIT may not have been home in the first way, the first thoughts that come to your mind. But at the end of the day, it was home.

However, I do have a confession. When I was going around schools, meeting teachers and counsellors, I realised that it’s not all that bad. Being in charge of UP also meant, I could play on the fact that yes this is where I started, this is where I come from, and this is my territory, my region. And maybe, just maybe, at the end of the trip, it all kind of started to make sense as to why of all the places, time and again, UP would fall into my lap - whether it is in the form of my job, my reminiscence, or my chaotic sense of identity.

My 4th (?) house within the campus