Finding Home, Across Oceans

Between Bombay's restless monsoon and Zimbabwe's scarlet earth, a journey unfolds—woven with chance encounters, quiet laughter, and the unspoken kinship of distant worlds; writes Vinod K.

- writes Vinod K.

The monsoon rain was drumming steadily against the windows of Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport when I wheeled my bag across the terminal floor. As always, leaving Bombay meant carrying with me not just luggage but the familiar mix of chaos and warmth that the city embodies. The auto rides through traffic, the smell of vada pav lingering outside CST, the crowded trains—these things are my anchor. Yet, on that humid evening, my heart beat with the thrill of heading somewhere completely new: Zimbabwe, a name that had hovered in my imagination for years, conjuring images of wildlife, red earth, and the mighty Victoria Falls.

The flight from Mumbai to Harare, with its layover in Addis Ababa, was long enough to make me question my decision midway. In the waiting lounge at Addis, I struck up a conversation with an elderly Gujarati couple. They were travelling to Zambia to visit their son. "Africa is good for business," the man told me, his fingers tightening around a flask of chai his wife had carried from home. He looked at me with curiosity when I mentioned Zimbabwe, almost as if to say: why there, and not South Africa, or Kenya, or Tanzania? I smiled. For me, Zimbabwe was not about business or bucket lists—it was about the unknown.

When I finally landed in Harare, it was evening. The airport was smaller and calmer than Mumbai's, and I remember stepping out into the cool air. The city didn't announce itself with noise or neon—it was subtle, spread out, with jacaranda trees blooming purple along wide avenues. My taxi driver, a cheerful man named Tendai, immediately asked me about cricket.