Where is home?—what is home, that needs a physical and substantial identity to

exist? And what is being at home, or being away from home feel like; how do you

describe the feeling you get inside of you, when you say “I’m at home’’ or “I miss

home.” Why is being homeless so shameful? why is it that the thought of not

having a concrete place to come back to such a scary thing. What creates a home,

and what are those attributes which gives ‘home’ these formidable characteristics,

because of which one can absolutely not do without it?—

Home is basically, where you can trace your memories back to. It keeps changing

its definition, as its subjective to each and every individual living on the earth.

Home, also, could easily mean where one spends most of his childhood days in, or

where he/she shares his own sense of independence.
 

Pico Iyer, in the video “What is home”— clearly defines, that home is not a

physical space occupying an area, rather it’s more of a feeling that comes over an

individual over a period of time, sometimes this ‘sense’ of home, is acquired

within; only when one is displaced from the core of his/her comfortable zone. He

also, says that: home is easily, where the loved ones are, but also the same place

where one can come back to after being created to sleep, to be on his own, where

he can attain complete haven. With this, we come onto a broader prospect, where

we can discuss, whether home defines a relationship with your own individual self

or with others living around it?
 

“How do you know home, the inside, if you’ve never been outside?”— While,

movement is a source and power, stillness is still greater, when you can finally halt

from motion. Where, stepping out, is a choice, being able to come back ‘home’

where you can be yourself, where you are surrounded by the people who care for

you, it is only that feeling which helps exhilarate the feeling of going out, keeping

intact the emotion of returning. Home is a very abstract idea of how one imagines

themselves to be and be in complete haven.
 

If, we contrast this to the novel “Home and the World”— we can clearly

distinguish and tell, that if it wasn't for Bimala; to come back inside, after she

stepped out physically and emotionally from the house and herself respectively,

she wouldn’t have understood the true value of ‘home’. If it hadn't been for

Sandip’s alluring techniques and charismatic way of being; Bimala, wouldn’t have

ever understood the faux temptations the world had to offer (Sandip), in contrast

to the undermining home— where her family and husband were. When she was

finally able to tell apart from the two. Only after she had stepped out, could she

finally gratify the existence of home— in her case and point being where her loved

ones where, and were there were no falsities. However, by the time Bimala did

manage to understand this, it was already too late, which eventually led to Nikhil’s

demise. It was the thus the movement which led to the course of the novel, in

return gratifying the essence of home—the inside world even.
 

Hence, when Iyer redefines motion as movement being an advantage, a privilege to

be understood only when you can acquire stillness in the end, I agree to the

statement, adding to the point: that, Stepping out as a choice, from confinement in

the beginning seems to exhilarating and wonderful, but sometimes, this

excitement leads to paranoia if the person has no place to come back to, no place

called ‘home’ to return to. It is only when we stay inside, that the outside begins to

be personified and attracts us towards it, with the confidence of coming back to

safety and closure.


-Esha Basu