The Unchangeable Home

In the poker play of life, you get five cards, and you can exchange three of them.

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Two you can't; you live with them. The two you can't change are your family and your home.

You can't change your father and your mother. What does it mean to say you can't change your home? People move all the time. As they do better, they buy and move to a larger home. Their work takes them to a new place, and they move their household to a new town, a new home. Every other day you hear of a person who has moved not just to another town but to another country—in effect started a new life.

I was born in a charming town in central India, Nagpur, named after the serpentine river, Nag, that flows through the city. Even after my parents moved away, we often visited the town because my aunt lived there. I visited not only Nagpur, but, as my aunt moved to other parts of central India, I kept visiting new towns: Narsingpur, Seoni, Jabalpur and Bhopal.

My parents settled in the eastern city of Kolkata and that became my town. I got to know it well and fell in love with it. I learned about its streets and shops, its parks and potholes. I walked to school and later to college. Its narrow lanes and weathered houses I got to know intimately. I played cricket on its lawns and soccer on its unkempt fields.