I want to go home.

Home, ghar — After about six years, I finally unpack my suitcase and put my clothes in the cupboard. Having lived off a bag for so long, you learn to own less and know to let go of things. I’m back to my room, back on my bed, back to mummy baba. But, I find myself saying time and again, “I want to go home.”

By the end of 2019, I wrote about what home meant to me. I realized that home was where I was. I wrote that mummy, Baba are home, but so am I. And yet, I don’t feel at home while I’m at home. Perhaps, there’s more to being home than just being where I am or within myself.

Home is a feeling, a feeling of peace and joy. I swallow hard as I admit that it’s hard to be at peace and find joy these days. Once a week or so, I break down at random places — sometimes while sitting at the back of the car with Mummy, Baba sat in front, or at Annamaya with Yukta beside me, or when I’m behind a pathao rider, heading back to ghar. I don’t know how people do it; I don’t.

No, I’m happy and extremely grateful — for my room, for mummy baba, for the view from my terrace, for my friends, neighbors. And everyone says I’m glowing these days; I am. And yet, I don’t feel at home.

I tell mummy that I want to go get a rented room of my own. And when she sees me sad, she tells me to leave the house. I’m glad she understands that it’s hard for me. I guess this time, home isn’t what it used to be. There are many people, many. I can see it’s difficult for Baba too. Mummy can’t stay at home even on Saturdays; she says she starts feeling stressed if she must stay here the entire day. And that’s why she understands. But I try to adjust, it’s been more than a month now, and I’m still adjusting.

Mummy, Baba, and I, it’s been just us for the past decade — we love our space, we each have our own rooms, our own ways of existing in our house. I wouldn’t see mummy baba for days, and that was fine. I would barely have meals with them, and that was fine. We love to exist in our space within the house. I don’t like anyone peeking into my room or calling my name out while I’m working. I don’t like having uninvited guests. I don’t like being asked where I’m going, what I ate in the day, who I’m going out with. I don’t like getting phone calls while I’m out. And mummy, Baba never do that — they don’t ask or call me. Instead, I come and tell them on my own; if I wish to, they trust me. If I don’t, they respect my space. Somedays, I don’t feel like talking at all; I tell mummy baba not to speak to me for two days. They agree and give me a satirical answer, “as if we want to talk to you.” We talk loud at times, and apart from the times I blast Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, the house is quiet. And that’s how we exist or have always lived in this house. But now, it’s unusually noisy and nosy. And I don’t like it. This wasn’t the home I left.

There are many people, people who will be here from now on. People who are family. Family. And I don’t feel at home anymore, with people I have always called family.

I want to go home.