The Many Homes of My Heart

New Delhi [India], December 8 (ANI): Where is home? It is a question that loiters in the mind, persistent and shifting, as if it knows the answer will always be incomplete. Is it Delhi, where I was born, and where my earliest memories were folded into the rhythms of family and tradition? Is it Bombay, where my ambitions began to sprout? Is it Manhattan, where I spent 31 years building a life from scratch, finding both struggle and success in the city's unyielding embrace? Or is it here in Mumbai, where the sea whispers its eternal rhythms, and I continue to build and rebuild?
Perhaps the truth is that home is not a place. It is a feeling, a memory, a state of being. It is carried within us, stitched into the fabric of our thoughts and intentions. I think of my mother, who rebuilt our family home in Delhi, tearing it down brick by brick and turning it into a compound where each of us children could have a floor, and where the garden, once rooted in the earth, now blossomed on the rooftop. My relatives flew in from America to see this act of renewal. I didn't.
I remember asking her, "Mom, does it mean something that I'm not there? Am I wrong not to feel compelled to see what's being torn down and rebuilt?"
"No, Baba," she said, her voice steady with the wisdom I've come to treasure. "You're the most like me. A home is just four walls. What matters is what's inside--the memories, the actions, the reactions, the intentions, and the love. Those live in your mind, your memory scape. That's where your real home is. So don't worry. Keep doing what you're doing."
Her words settled into me like seeds, growing steadily through the years. They taught me that home isn't a structure but a collection of moments and feelings. It is not defined by its walls but by what is carried within them: laughter, tears, conversations, and dreams. It is a reflection of the life we live, wherever that may be.
This understanding was tested in the strangest of places: a farm in Hebron, New York. Four hours from Manhattan, three hours from Montreal, it was a rural outpost that felt like stepping into another world. It was the America that voted for Donald Trump. The America that despises immigrants, even though it was built by them. The America that votes against its own interests, that denies women the right to choose, that bites the hand that feeds it.
Living there was a dissonant experience, a mix of beauty and contradiction. The landscape was stunning--rolling fields, endless skies, a stillness that felt both peaceful and unsettling. But the land was also steeped in an indifference to the struggles it masked, a hostility that lingered just beneath the surface. It was an America that often felt unwelcoming, especially to someone like me--a brown, gay immigrant, a chef who found his joy in the mingling of cultures and flavors.
And yet, I lived there. On that farm, surrounded by contradictions, I began to understand that home isn't about finding a perfect place. It's about creating meaning in imperfect ones. In Hebron, I built a kind of home--not in the acceptance of the land but in my defiance of its contradictions. I planted seeds, tended to the dogs roaming the fields, cooked meals that tethered me to my past, and found solace in the rituals of daily life. I learned to find beauty in discomfort and peace in the small, unspoken acts of creation.
In some ways, Hebron mirrored my own internal rebuilding. I've spent much of my life piecing myself back together after losses that felt insurmountable. At 18, my first love disappeared without warning, leaving a void that reshaped my sense of self. In Manhattan, I rebuilt through food, creating spaces of belonging for others even as I searched for my own. And in Hebron, I rebuilt by learning to sit with contradiction, to exist in a place that often felt misaligned with who I was.
Home, I've learned, is not a place that welcomes you with open arms. It is a place where you learn to welcome yourself, even when the world does not. It is not about comfort but about courage--the courage to live fully, to create meaning, to find beauty where it seems hidden.
My mother's wisdom echoes through these reflections. She often spoke of intention, not as a lofty ideal but as a daily practice. "A home," she would say, "is built on intention. It's not the walls that matter--it's what lives within them: the love, the memories, the grace, and the resilience. That's what makes a home."
As I sit here in Mumbai, reflecting on the many homes I have lived in--Delhi, Bombay, Manhattan, Hebron, and now this vibrant, chaotic city by the sea--I realize that home is not something I've found. It is something I've built, over and over again, in the spaces and moments that life has offered me. It is in the quiet of a plane ride, the solitude of a hotel room, the laughter of friends over a shared meal. It is in the memories I carry, the intentions I set, and the courage I summon to keep rebuilding.
In Hebron, I learned that home is not always where you feel safe. Sometimes, it's where you feel challenged, where you confront the dissonance between who you are and where you are. It's in the act of finding peace in that discomfort, of creating a sanctuary within yourself when the world around you feels unwelcoming.
So where is home? It is in Delhi, where my mother rebuilt our family house and taught me the power of intention. It is in Bombay, where the rains sharpened my resilience. It is in Manhattan, where I discovered the strength to carve out a place for myself over 31 years. It is in Hebron, where I learned to find meaning in contradiction. And it is here in Mumbai, where I continue to build a life that feels honest and whole.
But most of all, home is within me. It is in the rhythm of my soul, the choices I make, and the life I live with intention. It is in the conversations I carry in my heart, the love I give and receive, and the courage to rebuild when life demands it.
As my mother said, the walls don't matter. What matters is what lives within them--the memories, the love, the actions, and the resilience. That's where home truly is. And that, I've come to realize, is where it has always been. (ANI/Suvir Saran)
Disclaimer: Suvir Saran is an author, columnist and Chef. The views expressed in this column are his own.