Theloopylululog

What’s a place I visited that felt like home?

Interesting.

A very interesting question that has me come close…very close… to being very predictable.

If you are a regular visitor to my blog, you probably are thinking, Oh I know Lulu’s answer. Yawn. She claims to be all loopy but the heck she is!

But NO. Today is not that day where I will hand you the pleasure to gloat you know me by now. And this post is not that post where I will slide down the same old slippery road to being called predictable. Oh…the sacrilege!

Let me start by saying…every place I have ever visited has felt a bit like home.

From the mountain snows of Kullu, Manali and Shimla to the mountain roads of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.

From the seas off the Western coast to the seas down South and the lands far off the hand drawn sea borders winking and waving at me to come visit them soon.

From the roses and apples plucked right off the hilly orchards up North to the neelakurinjis and strawberries bought off the farmhands down South.

From Sims Park at Coonoor to Coakers Walk at Kodaikanal.

From the tea gardens of Darjeeling to the tea gardens of Munnar.

From the holy Triveni Sangam of North India to the sacred Triveni Sangam of South India.

From the houses of God in the hundreds of temples, churches, dargahs, gurudwaras spread across the country to the houses of solitude in the multitudes of meditation centres.

From the railway stations, bus stops, airports across the land I was born to the ones where I was just a visitor transiting.

From the hotels I lived in, to the streets I walked, to the hearts I drifted into.

From the vibrant noise of the outer world during travel to the solitude of the inner world marinating within me.

Where have I not felt at home?

I am the home I carry everywhere I go. So naturally every place feels like home.

Sounds bleh. Exactly. This is where I veer off my predictability. So stay onboard please…

Even home can turn suffocating at times. Like creaky unopened windows and moldy unused beds, home too can feel airless and bereft of movement. Stillness can be dangerous if it begins to reek of stagnancy.

I too get bored of myself when I get too used to the comfort zone I am for myself and too busy to try to wear laziness once in a while.

THAT is when I go to that one place I call home away from home.

A place that is as welcoming as a favorite grandmother and as nonchalant as a stranger. Teeming with million milling crowds, it is easy to become one with the many. To completely lose myself to the flow of time.

Where the profound meets the banal and the material meets the spiritual.

Where creation collides with dissolution, not as a fiery big bang explosion but as a quiet recognition of the passage of time.

The river, the stones, the temples, the air, the food, the people — where life lives in every precious drop, every sacred moment, every measured step, every soft breath, every hopeful prayer and every peaceful release.

Where death is celebrated. Where every pyre is lit with fire that is prayer.

Kashi. Benaras. Varanasi.

From Varana to Assi. From Assi to Varana.

Ghat after ghat after ghat of reverence, penance and silence.

Where Shiva speaks and Ganga waltzes.

And I just let go. Breathe. Listen. See.

Feel the poetry in motion.

Experience a freedom that is indescribable.

Kashi is where I found the true meaning of love. Where all my fears dissolved into the ancient waters that have been ferrying the dead to afterlife — to the lap of Shiva.

The cold steps of Hanuman ghat come alive as I seat myself before the town wakes up. Before even the sun comes out on it’s daily sojourn.

In the early hours pre-dawn, it is just me, a drongo, a kingfisher and the river singing for our beloved Shiva.

Life ebbs and flows right next to me at Harishchandra ghat as the living wail and the dead smile.

Is it the end of a beginning or the beginning of yet another inevitable end?

That’s a well kept secret whose mystery is revealed when Kashi invites you and you enter the threshold of Shiva.

Kashi is a home I will never get sick of or worry about being thrown out of. This is where I am welcomed alive or dead with equal fervour. It is where I am welcomed by the living and the dead with the same recognition.

This is where it all comes to nought. The zero point.

Where everyone wins over themselves. Where everyone loses what no longer matters and discovers the true meaning of belonging to everything and nothing… all at once.

And what is home but a deep sense of belonging?

Kashi : Where Life meets Death and the cycle stands still for a moment of homage to all that IS. Before it all continues to churn again. The beginning. The cycle. The end.

Kashi: My only permanent home away from my only temporary home — ME.

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