This Is Home

Since childhood, we've been taught that home is where we live. However, I realised early on that this definition didn't work for me – I always wanted to escape my own home. I tried to find home in people, animals, emotions, and even landscapes. I clung to them, hoping they'd be permanent. Yet, time revealed otherwise, shattering my sense of belonging and creating a yearning to understand what ‘home’ meant. Trying to make sense of everything in a concrete jungle, makes me feel trapped – I can't just go and take a nap on a nice rock under the sun, without being called mad.

I had the privilege of taking a gap year after my graduation, most of which I spent backpacking across the mountains, in Himachal Pradesh’s -25°C winters. There, I was able to just be. That lifestyle made me realise that my true home has always been within myself, in the present, as it's the only thing I have any control on.

To visually represent this, I used this piece to depict myself as a house with different rooms, each corresponding to different states of my being. I've even included a balcony which illustrates the moments when I tend to dissociate in situations that are beyond my control, and I have a hard time navigating my thoughts and emotions.