My Eternal Home

Thoughts of home normally should evoke cosy and comforting feelings. Home is not only about shelter, but about being and belonging. However, as we become more mobile across time and space, and as the frequency at which we change residence becomes a measure of how well we adapt to the ever-changing world around, our idea of home has become, I suspect, fuzzy and haunting. For me, when I think of home, the overwhelming feeling is not of comfort, but of loss and longing.

Lawibual, the tiny 40-household village I was born in, was located along a winding hill range by Tipaimukh Road, 260 kilometres to the south of Imphal in Manipur. From Lawibual, our family moved to Bukpi, a 200-household village located 20 kilometres along the same Tipaimukh Road when I was nine. Eight years later, we moved again; this time to Lamka, a district headquarter where we changed residence four times before we could have a house to call our own. From there, I ventured out beyond state boundaries for my higher studies to Chandigarh, and then to Delhi where I have lived for more than 10 years.