Homesick? For which home?

It is a sad life when one watches people go home for the weekend and realises that one has none. Well, I do have a home but no real sense of home. As in, I do have a sense of home, but no sense of being away from a home. Everyone has a home to go to. I carry my home wherever I go. Pretty much like them pikeys (please refer to a forthcoming post about the movie Snatch). The bitter part is that they have a name: Pikeys. I really can't call myself anything. And that is a sad thing, being a no-name.
I was born in a city which I left before I realised that I was born. Madras (no way am I calling it Chennai) was always a place I went for the summers (ain't that the stupidist thing to do? Who listens to me anyway?) and met relatives whose names I had a difficult time remembering. Bombay (you won't even catch me dead saying Mumbai. Its Bombay city) was where I grew up for the first 10 years of my life. The nicest 10 contiguous years. Bombay made me (borrowed unabashedly from Graham Greene's "England made me"). I believe a few relatives died while I was in Bombay, but I hadn't yet learnt to miss people who are dead, because I hadn't learnt how to miss people at all. I enjoyed the company of everyone while they hung around me. That in a way, helped me a lot. It sorta prepared me for what my life had to give me. All those 10 years, I kept travelling to various places. All over India. I was rarely in a place for more than 6 straight months. When I sang "Homeward bound" as a part of the school choir, one of my friends from Imphal cried. I wasn't really THAT bad. I still had a girl's voice (which helped my sister push all her unwanted calls to me, and I would speak on her behalf without giving her off to her friend on the other end!). I asked him (yeah, I was in an all boy's school, and I loved that more than all the co-ed schools I have been in. I don't think I would go back to one, though) what happened. He told me he missed home. When I related this incident to my mother, she asked me "Why did he cry?". Like every mom she thought I sang so well that I had moved him to tears. Puhleease!! Sounds so corny. I told her, "Ma'am shouted at him for not finishing his homework." I couldn't have explained the missing-home thing and hence couldn't provide that reasoning.
Then we moved to Lucknow. I remember Lucknow only for its rich curds and hot milk in metal containers which I would dutifully pick from the cowshed (the smell of which I grew to like before I left that city). That city taught English in Hindi ( I should have joined La Martiniere where I had an invitation to join, were it not for the distance and the alien responsibility of escorting my sister) and I truly hate it when someone messes with that language (some of you must be aware of my beliefs on hate and love). I have grown sentimental towards Urdu now, but hey! English is English. My early childhood was swathed in English (not American), and the only words in Tamil I knew were "Amma" and "Appa" (which, technically, are not Tamiyy or Tamizh). Is my English spotless? Far from it, but I still love that language. English for prose and Urdu for poetry. Anyway, Lucknow will be remembered for introducing me to Urdu and Avadhi (I shall relegate an entire post to my exposure to the many languages and how I enjoyed them more than my company with humans). It also made me fat, which I still carry around like dead weight (well, it actually is).
The education system was so bad that we moved to Madras. Stayed in our house in Mylapore about 5 minutes from the beach. From our terrace, I had the church to the East, a temple to the West and a mosque to the North. I had coconut trees and my best friend's house to the South. That house is gone (sold) and so have the trees. My friend is still around growing closer to me by the day. Wonderful guy. Any girl who wants an Iyer boy, please let me know. You can't find a finer gentleman than him (or maybe you can, but why waste time looking?). Madras gave me little more than ruin my English further. Lucknow gave me the "baba" and "re" that I used to add to my sentences, though I got over it pretty fast. Madras made it difficult for me not to add the "aa" at the end of every question. "Yes-aa?", "no-vaa?". God saved me. I found it difficult to stay away from other words too, like "Machchi" and other words which I can't put down in writing. My Tamiyy/~zh still sounds un-Madrasi and I like it that way. My Lucknowi Hindi (which has a good mix of Urdu by now) was considered unacceptable in my exam papers!! I would serenade my classmates with old Hindi songs (I couldn't get the words of the Tamiyy/~zh numbers, though I think I can now do so) or English melodies (which they hadn't heard as MTV hadn't yet crept into India).
Then dad got transferred to Bombay again. This time Bombay undid all the beauty it had once given me, but loyalty is a quality that sometimes astonishes the most gelid minds. I suppose I will always love Bomaby although it is not my home. This phase in Bombay was painful.
I left for Pune and enjoyed my stay there. Pune was and still is a city I hug when I get off the train/flight. I mean literally. I stretch out my arms and hope no one gets their teeth knocked off. Pune also gave me "Country Roads" by Denver making me realise that I have no home to call my own.
I left Pune for Hyderabad. God knows when I will leave Hydi. Hydi has given me a good house and home. I like it. Built in a vague colonial style with lawns (for my mom) and temple about 2 minutes away. I love the sounds of bells and chants (during the Dhanur/Margayyi/~zhi months). I shall return everyday to it for some more time.
Over this travel I never once felt connected to a single city, which made it easier for me to leave one and go to the other (no, this cannot be likened to anything else in my life). I really love Bombay and Pune. They are like a pal. Just being there to make it worth one's while. I love the music season of Madras and when the pradosham is conducted in Mylapore. I like the chaat (which I would buy for Rs. 2) and rustic feel of Lucknow. I love the mishti dhoi and Durga festival of Calcutta. I love the "nyaan" and "O" of Palaghat. I love Trivandrum for Ananthpadmanaban temple. I love the Punjabi conversations and rajma-chaawal of Delhi. I also liked the early October of Delhi. Hyderabad gave me a sense of being a professional and a lot of time to re-visit my love: philosophy.
But I have no place to call my own. No place to go to with the hope of being received like a man returning after a long time away from home. An empty college, an empty department, and empty office during Diwali made that feeling worse. However light I make of it, not belonging anywhere is not a pleasant feeling.
And guv'nor, I ain't no pikey!