Homing to roost

Roosting muses: Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian  to travel in space.  When Indira Gandhi asked Sharma how India looked from the outer space, he replied Saare Jahan Se Achcha (the best in the world).  

I rather wished he had said our world was the best in the universe. This thought struck me when I am on vacation now, away from my country for more than a couple of months. Yes, there is nothing like home for anybody, though one may wish to call some place as a home away from home. So, I can’t wait to return to my continent, my subcontinent and my city. This is besides the point coming to the angle I want to delve into or drive home (no pun intended) 

There should be nothing like the town I was born in, that is in Telangana, namely my birthplace. It is a different matter my father’s place is in the present Andhra Pradesh State. I moved to a different place after birth, Hyderabad, for my primary school. Later on, I returned to this city for work and pursue Law degree after completing my high school and graduation in some other place called Tirupati. I used to love Tirupati for I lived there during my prime, from high school to my post graduation. Having been in Hyderabad for four decades, it turned out to be my home place where I raised the family. Eventually and naturally, I do long to return here more than any other place in the world. 

It sounds ironic how a person considers a place as a home. There will be multitude reasons behind that sweet love.  It is not just like chicken coming home to roost, or politicians coming back after power to cool their heels or account for their actions. 

When one travels to another place on a vacation or for work, he or she must begin to love returning to their region.  If the trips are made beyond one’s region to a different state, the wish is to return to that state as early as possible. If one leaves his or her country, their desire would be to go back to their country. Therefore, an Indian abroad on a tour is sure to love setting foot in Delhi even if his or her place is in Kanyakumari or Rameswaram (This is when one knows not even a word in Hindi and speaks some other Indian language). 

Finally, like Rakesh Sharma, if one were out of this ‘world’ (literally, i.e., when one goes into outer space, or otherwise, in a figurative sense, under the influence of some drug and hallucinating but still alive ), then he or she should love the entire humanity be it from anywhere in the world en masse.

My idea is to highlight the point that one’s sense of belonging to a place is tied to many factors that are subjective or relative. All said and done, our Mother Earth and fellow earthlings ought to be the best.