Home. That’s my happy place. 

No matter where I go, no matter who I am with, my happy place is, and will always be my home. I have, in the past written about what home means to me. It needn’t be the place I grew up in, it needn’t be the first home I bought with my husband or the place I brought the twins home to – it’s just the place I call home now, at this moment.

Home was sometimes in the old city with a small garden and a large courtyard where sparrows chirped in the huge malti creeper. Sometimes it was the gorgeous high-ceilinged bungalow in the University campus where my parents were professors. It might have been my spacious hostel room in Delhi which I made mine with a mattress on the floor and fresh flowers in a vase. In Bombay, it was a tiny shared room with Shah Rukh Khan posters on a makeshift thermacol soft board and a full-sized mirror which I lugged in along with my roomie from many stations away on a local train.

It might have been the tiny one-room apartment I moved into with my husband or the many others I’ve had ever since.

No matter how big or small it has been, no matter which city it has been in, but my home has always been my happy place.

Even when I’m on the best holiday ever, after a point, home is where I want to be. Surrounded by my disorganised bookshelves with that tall lamp I bought on a whim, the rug I got during a Diwali discount sale, a few plants in mismatched pots that have survived despite the irregular attention I give them – yeah, that’s my happy place.

I cannot deny that the people at home have some part in making it my happy place but as I stand on the brink of becoming an empty-nester I’m hoping the place itself will be some kind of comfort and will see me through, when the children have flown the nest.

Joining in Linda’s SoCS prompt — “happy place.” Write the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “happy place.” Drop by her site for details on how this works.