St. Louis

There’s always something strangely satisfying about going back and visiting a place that is dear to you – a place that you call “home.”

Take, for instance, the city of Hyderabad (AP, India) (and Secunderabad – they are twin cities), where I grew up. I spent 11 of the most formative years of my life there and every street and every bus that I see on the roads, when I go visit, has a memory associated with it. Hyderabad shall always be my home, like no other place in the planet can be.

But don’t we all have different places that are homes in different ways ?

Chennai (Madras) for me is home too. Although I spent only 4 years there, these were perhaps the most crucial years of my life. I have the fondest of memories and some of the best of friends from those days – it’s hard to drive down to Besant Nagar beach and not be reminded of the Beach Olympics that my friends and I suddenly decided to conduct one Saturday night at 11 pm!

St. Louis is another such place I call home. Although I can’t really put a finger to it, I think of St. Louis with fondness and find myself affronted when people (especially on the coasts) talk of the Midwest in a somewhat derisive tone. Perhaps it is because I first learnt to live in America over here. Perhaps it has to do with the little things – running with Vidya in Forest Park in the summers; owning my first car; enjoying myself at graduate school with a fantastic advisor; hanging out with nOnda; being roommates with the one and only Booze

So last weekend I went back to St. Louis to visit Vidya and my brother Rahul, who too has come to St. Louis (to Wash U, yes, my inexhaustible similarity-seekers) to do his Masters in Comp. Sc. I was excited about the trip almost a month before it actually happened, of course. And when I did land, I was truly in my element, driving home on 170-S.

The getaway from the fast pace of New York life, in addition to being refreshing, made me wonder if I missed the nearly idyllic existence that I had back when I was living in St. Louis. Forest Park was simply too beautiful for words and I wish I had a camera with me to capture some of it.

I wonder if living in NY has made a difference to my overall temperament. I remember making a special note of it because my aunt, Renuka, who visited me in NY the previous weekend had asked if I had changed at all. Everybody I spoke to told me that NY tends to have that effect on you but I was inclined to believe that perhaps 6 months was not long enough.

I would have continued to believe that was true had it not been for my propensity to lose patience with the drivers in St. Louis. For some inexplicable reason, everybody on the road seemed so much slower. People moved slower in supermarket aisles. They took their time to cross the road, to stop at stop signs.

And all this was leaving me a little perplexed (not to mention, impatient) until one afternoon when I was venting my usual frustration, Vidya told me, “Ravi, this isn’t NY so cut out the attitude!”

That made me smile and cut out the attitude

I returned from my trip on Tuesday night with a smile on my face. I usually am found with a smile on my face (not that it is that rare but you know what I mean!) when I am on an India trip and particularly, when I am in Hyderabad. It has do with going back to where one truly belongs, I think.

As for St. Louis, it shall always be my home in America.