"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden, even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone... You'll see one day when you move out. Just sorta happens one day, and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know? You won't ever have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself. You know, for... For your kids. For the family you start. It's like a cycle or something. I don't know. But I miss the idea of it, you know? Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

- Garden State


in a couple of weeks i'll be on a plane to india for a fortnight's visit. 15 months since i left. i don't know what to expect. i mean, there's plenty to do. between bombay, bangalore and madras, there's like at least fifty people to meet. but i feel so damn disjointed. i haven't spent a decent length of time in madras, the place i grew up in, in more than six years. is it a holiday, is it a social visit, a homecoming, a reconnection? keeping in touch, staying close to the roots, an obligation, a formality, a polite hello, a desperate reconciliation, nostalgia, what? i have no fucking idea. will customs hassle me? will i get the shits after having a street corner samosa and chai? will hindi or tamil still splutter from my mouth? will i be tempted by cheap fags? can i spend enough time with people i care about? is any time enough? will i hate everything i wanted to leave behind? will i love everything i miss? will there be discomfort, or an easy snap-to-fit? will it still feel like home?