Recently I got a weird thought about the sense of 'belonging'. If you ask someone where s/he belongs, the usual response would be the place where they currently live in or the place where they have been living for the most part of their life. I have always believed that the place where I was born and brought up is where I belong to and in a way I'm one of the those who boast of their home towns... :) But my recent vacation to India (perhaps because I had a lot of time to think :D) did bring in a question into me... "Where do I belong?"
This might kind of sound stupid but I still feel it's an absolutely valid question. Let me give a brief background before I dwell deep into the hypothesis... About 5 years back when I was doing my final year of engineering at college (of course in my home town), the city seemed to be mine... I was so filled with the place and everything around me indicated that I belonged to that place right from my bikes' number plate to my address and the people around me. When I went home this time, I was really enjoying my time there... I mean spending time with parents and sis, having good food, enjoying the 'back home after long' treatment and all that... But the belonging with the city became a question mark. I have been to almost every street in the city (ok... a hyperbole here...) but I didn't know where to go... Mom was busy with her cooking/home management, dad with his business, sis with her studies... Almost every other friend of mine was in Chennai or Bangalore busy with his/her work... Just like the famous quote "Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink" - Madurai did have the same places we used to hangout but I was feeling out of place and the best part is... nobody is to be blamed. If this is the case with the place that nurtured me for over twenty years, I need not mention about Chennai or the US. Tampa again was a classic illustration of this... We kind of settled very well in the place, had a huge gang, loads of fun, lot of travel... But one fine day, our company was chucked out and all of a sudden the place seemed alien. So... coming back to the question, "Where do I really belong?"
The simple but tough to accept answer is - 'Nowhere'. Our priorites at any moment decide where we belong and life as I'd mentioned a lot of times before, is just a travel, a journey to a destination unknown. Love, relationships, commitments, religion, sense of belonging are all feelings that we develop so that we don't feel alienated or meaningless. Imagine a world where everyone realizes that s/he is actually an independent entity surrounded by myths... After all that is what all religions preach... Forget the bondage of relationships and just focus on the Lord Almighty. But the beauty in the preaching remains only as long as the human nature of attachment counterbalances it. If everyone starts believing and practicing it, the response would be "Yeah, I know... So what?" Reminds me of the dialog from the movie iRobot where the introductory slides say "...They are governed by the rules and the rules are meant to be broken". We are all reminded of the absolute truth by religions and our great ancestors; but if everyone starts taking that course to be out of bondage, world would come to a stand still and everyone would die of frustration. The message actually is... "Live as if the entire world is yours but keep in mind that nothing is actually yours!". That is the only way to live happily and in the process, make as many people happy as possible.
1 comment:
hmmm, though we heard this lots of time in the past thr various mediums, it's still interesting to read when u write it :)
PS: vandutaanda sacrates ;)
PPS: Novel eppada release...eagerly waiting for that...
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