I wake up in a friend’s house on a Murphy bed in the guest room. Bright sunlight fills the room. I feel displaced. Sounds of metal welding, horns and the occasional local train are all around. A sign of construction, movement and well, Mumbai. A constant work in progress. I grew up in Mumbai but when I go back now, I no longer live in familiar spaces. I live in the homes of friends and in-laws, where the walls, books and pictures store stories I do not know. When I took a flight from Bangalore to Bombay this week, I realised that at some point in the last 6 years, this flight stopped signifying home-coming.

I moved to Bangalore in 2018. For 25 years, I had known only Bombay as home. Within 6 months of my moving out, my empty-nester parents decided to move to Mulki, the town they were born in, rendering me rootless. My mother had decided she was tired of living in rented matchbox houses. For me, ‘where are you from’ became a longer answer. When I was still in Bombay, that question was loaded too. If anyone asked where in Bombay I lived, I would say Andheri and hoped they didn’t ask east or west. All cities, especially Bombay are filled with pincode snobs who can guess everything about you from your locality and school.

Between work and 2 years of staying indoors during COVID, Bangalore and I remained acquaintances. But I became an adult in Bangalore - stayed alone for the first time, got married and adopted a dog. When I first moved, I looked for excuses to visit my Mumbai friends often. But every passing year made new friendships deeper. There are cafes and bars that feel like ‘neighbourhood’. There are friends that feel like ‘constants’. And since Ollie has come home, the city has gotten warmer. On our daily walks, the security guard from a hotel on our street greets me in Tulu. There are people and dogs on every street that acknowledge us with a smile or a wag.