MEDITATIONS ON HOME
Thrity
Umrigar
I have two
contrary impulses that I have tried to reconcile most of my life. Mostly unsuccessfully.
On the one hand, I
am one of those silly people who wants to live permanently in almost
any place
that I visit. Even before I’ve spent a
full day in a new town or country, I see myself living there, writing
my books,
making new friends, building a new life. It
is alarming how easily I can imagine myself
in new situations and places, how effortlessly the nesting instinct
takes over,
the alacrity with which I can make myself at home in the world.
On the other hand,
home is wherever I’m not. I am a mongrel, a malcontent, forever seeing
over the
horizon to a distant shore. In that
sense, I am a true immigrant. Unease and
restlessness are built into my bones and I find myself longing for the
places I
have left behind. When I am in the
United States, I find myself missing and defending the warmth and
bustle of
life in India. I speak longingly of the
crowded streets, the lack of alienation, the involvement in each
other’s lives,
the friends who visit without calling first, the neighbors who keep an
eye out
for each other.
But when I am in
India, those same customs and people, the gossip and the
inquisitiveness, the
constant scrutiny and gaze, the busybodyness, drive me crazy. I find myself longing for the coolness of
America—the wide open spaces, the privacy, the stillness and quiet, the
freedom
to be solitary. The absence of people
who heap quantities of food into your plate without asking, who tell
you to eat, eat, eat, who ask the most personal
questions without batting an eye, who give you unsolicited advice on
matters
medical, legal, political and intimate.
But then I’m back
in America and the evening streets seem too empty and lifeless and the
malls
and shopping arcades seem shallow and soulless and America itself feels
too
clean and sanitized and unnatural. And
the conviction builds that this is not real life, that life is meant to
be
soulful and dirty and messy and crazy-making.
And so the cycle begins anew.
My ideal ‘home,’ I
suppose, would be some combination of involvement and privacy,
closeness and
distance, love, but not the smothering kind.
That is the ideal I carry in my head and have, with some
success,
managed to bring into my life. It is a
good life that I have built, I know this, but somehow it pales in
comparison to
the power of my dreams.
In
my dreams, I gather all the people that I
love under one roof and we live happily together without quarrel or
misunderstanding. There are communal
meals, big, boisterous affairs, with much drinking and talking and
joking. But when someone goes to place
more food on
my plate and I shake my head no, they listen.
Thrity
Umrigar
is an Indian-American writer, who was born in Mumbai
and immigrated to the United States when she was 21. She is a
journalist and
the author of the novels Bombay Time,
The Space Between Us, First Darling of the
Morning, If Today Be Sweet, and The
Weight of Heaven. She has written
for the Washington Post, Cleveland Plain
Dealer, among other newspapers, and regularly writes for The Boston Globe's book pages. She is
currently assistant professor of English at Case Western Reserve
University
where she teaches creative writing and literature. She was a winner of
the
Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University. She has a Ph.D. in English and
presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.