A threadfin stew, and the idea of home

Cynics would say I am rootless. I'd say I am rooted in many places. I've lived in Bengaluru for 26 years, Delhi for 17. Bengaluru is the place I consider home, I speak Kannada passably, and I am deeply attached to the people and the city. Yet, I can't say I truly belong. I never really took to Delhi and its culture, although I speak Hindi decently. Mumbai is always exciting and feels like home for about a week, after which I'd rather go home. My Marathi is good enough to fool the locals for a while, and I like hearing my mother's tales of her life there—it gives me some feeling of closeness.

- SAMAR HALARNKAR

To make things more complicated, I feel a strong affinity for the place where my father came from, even though I have only a rudimentary command of Konkani. I love the music, I follow reels of musically inclined Goans—from choirs to school students to old women singing while they clean fish—and, yes, I can sing most of Lorna’s Bebdo. If you don’t know who and what that is, please Google and know your country better.

All these places associated with my life and memories struggle with change and what is now called “development”. I must admit that the development of Goa troubles me the most. I have a sense of dark foreboding when I see how the state's lush commons—the hills, the fields and the forests—are being sold to the highest bidder. It’s depressing. I admire the pockets of resistance that have sprung up everywhere as citizens try to hold the line against rapacious mafias and politicians.