I've been a homebody since I was young. When I was a girl, home's small pleasures-my bookshelf, the trundle bed with wheels that travelled across the floor of seemingly its own volition each night, the comforting enclosedness and safety of my room-dominated the map of my limited world. It extended just enough to encompass my parents' room, across the narrow corridor from mine, and a closet built into the wall, its deep shelves holding linens, a jumble of dust-covered shoes, and assorted hardware, perfect for hiding in.
Most crucially, it included the back garden, the setting for many games played solo and in company, both imaginary and of flesh. A large patch of desultory grass, it held four spindly papaya trees and had a sagging clothesline strung across the length of it. In some far corner, out of sight there was a tangle of juhi, untended to and unremarkable until in bloom, and then it asserted its presence through its intensely floral, balsamic fragrance that rang out after dark.
At the time, I didn't know what it was. I scarcely cared. I knew only that it was, like home itself, a reliable presence, a mundane but essential part of my life. It was a fragrance that quite unconsciously I began to rely upon to spell out home; haven. Love.
These love stories usually begin before we imagine they do, and so mine perhaps did in that home, before change swept in, swift and remorseless, ushering in abrupt endings and unfamiliar new beginnings.
Esta historia es de la edición May - June - July 2024 de Condé Nast Traveller India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición May - June - July 2024 de Condé Nast Traveller India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
THE 2024 HOT LIST
Our pick of the best new hotels in the world
SHOPPING IN ABU DHABI
From a barbershop café to Emirati gems, home-grown brands offer a fresh counterpoint to the UAE capital's glitzy malls and designer labels.
LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF
No place delights in retelling its own tale quite like the city of angels. Now, a wave of chefs, hoteliers, and entrepreneurs is remixing the classics to usher in a new golden age.
LOVE & TRAVEL - DECOUPLING
Ona long trip through Spain, Sophie Yun Mancini bids a tender goodbye to an old love
LOVE & TRAVEL - REFLECTIONS
For writer and translator Sara Rai, Banaras has her heart and is everywhere all at once. On a trip to Palermo, she wraps her way around the two cities in one breathless sentence
LOVE & TRAVEL - DEPARTURES
Chef Manu Chandra looks back on a time that brought home the power of love and travel
LOVE & TRAVEL - SUMMER
Travelling in a wheelchair, author Jarred McGinnis makes the most of a chance solo parenting trip
LOVE & TRAVEL - PERFUME
Author Divrina Dhingra distils the varied fragrances of the many places she has called home
CARNIVOROUS IN COIMBATORE
A Texan vegetarian fell for Kongunadu cooking, quail and all.
WHERE TO STAY - THE FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL USA
An eclectic palette and worldly flourishes fill this 19thcentury mansion turned hotel in New York.