What is the difference between a refugee and an expat? There’s a world of difference, obviously.
There’s something they have in common, nevertheless. It’s that they both live away from home.
The absence of ‘home’ is what they have in common, even though an expat is free to return and a refugee, is not. But what is home anyway?
I’ve often wondered about that for myself.
Where is my home?
At points in my life, I have answered ‘Mumbai’ to that question. But now, I’m no longer so sure. After living away for many years, the city no longer feels that familiar. It has changed a lot, for sure, with all the new construction, high-rises, and infrastructure. I feel very nostalgic for the Bombay of the nineties, especially where I grew up, the town area, that mercifully has remained largely unchanged. I even went on a walking tour recently, as if I were a tourist, and was deeply conscious of how many times I’d walked on those same streets in my teens, without noticing my surroundings.
Not that I don’t love Mumbai or my home country deeply anymore. When I couldn’t travel during COVID-19 times, I missed it. I would tell myself that I would reach down and touch the ground the minute I got off the plane when I would eventually be able to travel. (Didn’t do anything of the sort – I just like to express myself dramatically). Those days when I picked up the newspapers and read headlines like, ‘India gasps for breath’, I felt as if my breath were being snatched.
I must qualify this by saying that my love for the country is not blind – I can see its flaws, just as I can see its beauty. Today, I was reading a book review of a book about Sri Lanka’s civil war and India’s role in it, and I felt shame and regret. I’m not a jingoist. However, I rejoiced along with many of my country’s people at the encouraging trends in the 2024 elections, when my faith in India’s polity and the good sense of its common people was restored.
If Mumbai doesn’t truly feel like a home, then neither does the current city of residence. Never mind that people tell me that I know more about it than many people who have lived here longer – but that’s because I like to explore. If my kids were not so enamored of this city, I probably wouldn’t choose to live here, no matter how comfortable the life here. This is not my ‘karma bhoomi’. I can never do the kind of work that I like to and that I could have done in India, here.
Where then is my home? Where do I belong?
I remember comforting my husband when we moved to Canada many years ago, which was our first time living away from India. I knew he was more homesick than I was. So I told him, ‘Home is where I am’. I think this is what home boils down to for me. Home is a feeling, rather than a geographical entity. For the most part, home is the feeling of being around the people I love – family or friends.
But the feeling can be brought up by non-human factors as well. The taste of ginger tea, the smell of earth after it has rained, the sounds of Indian music. Or being called a ‘didi’ or a ‘bhabhi’ in a foreign land.
Not having ‘home’ tied down to latitudes and longitudes can feel unmooring, at times. But the flip side is that I can enjoy feeling at home in multiple locations.
What is home to you? I’d love to know.
My musings about home have stemmed from the fact that today is International World Refugee Day.
According to the UNHCR website, the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes surpassed 110 million in 2023. The mind boggles at this figure. I don’t suppose this number will grow smaller any time soon.
The theme this year is solidarity with the refugees. What are the things we can do to show our solidarity? Again, I would love to hear some suggestions. I can’t think of anything beyond supporting the organizations that work for refugee welfare. Hopefully, we can all do small things to help. And hopefully, the refugees will be able to feel at home in their countries of refuge, someday. Insha Allah.
Sharmistha's musings 