Where is my friend's home?

There is a film that goes by the same name. I love that one. But this is not a post about that film. Although this post and that film is somewhat remotely related, it's not an influence or provocation for writing this post.

One of the ill-effects of growing up is you have less friends. At some point you realise, the circle's shrinking. So, that way it isn't a post about losing friends or lost friends too. Neither is it a post about ageing, I'm done with that in an earlier post.

One of those days, when I feel I'm growing old and I've less friends to count on than I usually had. I came back from a pandal-hopping session. Incidentally it was again a Dashami, the last day of Durgapuja. But this one has nothing to do with Durgapuja, it could've happened to me anytime. It just happened that day. I was tired from walking in the scorching sun and overeating junk-food. As I reached home, I felt not like lying down but to make myself comfortable on the wide old chair in my room, that I had to bring out for my friends. Usually the chairs in my room are smaller ones, strictly for business purpose! This one on the contrary is a old one that allows not just sitting but 'leisure'. That word is in quotes, because I'll later toy with the idea. These days it's used as a heightened platform to keep useless things like unused clay pots, boxes of rejected shoes and stuff like that. The locality where I live has a water-logging problem. If it rains heavily for a few hours, rain water starts filling inside my house. That's why there's the need of such heightened platforms. That's the time when I realise how much junk simple living can produce and since you can't throw away anything for they may be needed for some unknown cause later, one has to learn the art of junk management too! Anyway, digressions apart, I had to bring that chair to my room, since my room turned into the private party spot for my friends during the pujas. I had less chairs to accommodate more friends. It turned out to be quite thought-provoking, the chair I mean. I'm planning to keep it here, but probably I wont be able to. It occupies too much space and anyway, saving your household from rainwater is much more important than fancy thought provocation!

(Confession: I stopped writing this post sometime back, wrote and published another sudden rush of feelings. I just didn't find words, gave it a serious thought to publish this one as my first unfinished post. Anyway, the point is, much has happened when it was on hold, the feeling has kind of faded away. So there will be discontinuities and forgotten promises, if any!)



So, when I was sitting on this chair with all my new, festive clothes on and my walking shoes scattered all over the place, my eyes half closed as an aftereffect of the tiredness of pandal-hopping and overeating lousy food, this thought occurred to me. It's been long, since I've been to a 'friend's home'. This does not mean that I don't have friends anymore or I don't visit their places. In fact, I do that regularly, sometimes overdo! But as I'm growing 30, so are my friends. Quite a few of them has got married, some with children. Others are too busy with their professional lives and busy keeping up their PR. These days we hardly meet and when we do for brief evenings, it's either in a coffee shop or a bar. Even when we meet at someone's home, it's a drinking spree.

The question is, What am I missing then? The warmth is still the same with my friends, at least that's the last thing I miss. The comfort is still the same, if not more. We don't have to steal/borrow/hunt food in the home refrigerator, we just buy that on the way or even better, we make a call and order stuff! There is one major change in the whole scene though. There's no one to 'bother' us these days. Most of my friends don't live with their parents anymore. Even if they do, parents know we've grown up and it's best for the interest of both to be non-interfering. I wonder, if the concept of 'interference' and 'bothering' has something to do with 'care' and 'belonging'. Coming to the big question, what is it that makes a home a "home"? What I really miss here is that time when I can drop in at some random friend's place, uninvited, even at the oddest hour. I don't have to call them before dropping in, because I know even if they are not home, his/her parents and extended family will be accommodative enough to allow me stay there, at my leisure! They will even call my friend, if possible and tell him/her to come back asap. They will take care that I feel at home and offer me water, food, entertainment and what not? I can spend lazy afternoons,days,evenings,till they push me back home. All for my own good though; they don't mind if I stay there, but they are worried that I'll get a good bashing from my parents if I return late! They don't mind if we keep each other's t-shirts or books or geometry-box for periods long enough to forget whom did it actually belong to, but they'll be very worried if I skip a tuition class or get a bad grade! We must lower our voices while calling each other those fancy abusive names and while talking about 'sex'! We must find ingenious ways to hide the fact that we've been smoking or bunked classes and went to a film.

Coming back to where I started, what do I actually miss then? Is it just the time? Is it that parental care? Is it that sense of belonging? Or is it something more abstract and obscure? Do I miss a certain ambiance? Or is it a concept of a space that I'm familiar to and call it a 'friend's home'? Is this just a nostalgia like any other or is there a more powerful yet undisclosed indication of a possible future? Or is it just a leisurely thought of a half-awakened mind, because it had nothing to do at that very moment, that very place and felt lonely?

If I knew the answers to any of these questions, this post wouldn't have been here...