“I am a seagull, of no land,
I call no shore my home,
I am bound to no place,
I fly from wave to wave.”
– Empress Elisabeth of Austria (“Sisi”)
No matter where I go, the orange of the sky reminds me of my home.
I vividly remember how Nani (grandma) always carried with her a sillage of warm, handmade halwa (sweets) wherever she went; how, after a long, strenuous day, my heartbeat settled against the fur of the beloved creature that mollified me with its meows; how the family huddled together playing tash to Lata Mangeshkar crooning softly from an old radio. Friends and family gathered for weekly dawats (dinners) as children impishly ran about chasing the cats. My childhood remains redolent with the warmth of love, the drumming of rain on the balcony, the aroma of chai wafting through the corridors, and something sweet cooking somewhere close. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, it all feels near again and time folds back on itself.
I had built a perfect paradigm in this city of dreams, a sonorous composition of opportunities, education, dance rehearsals and social life, replete with love from family and friends. From my professional dance practice to the leadership positions I held, I felt at a cusp, suspended between everything I had become and everything I still wanted to be.
Mumbai Meri Jaan
Mumbai is magical in the way it exists, alive in texture and temperament, in its food, its people and its colors. It carries an emotional architecture built of motion, memory and monsoon light. It is rampant, gregarious and enigmatic all at once. With Victorian Gothic and Art Deco silhouettes blending into Indian hues of ochre and teal, the city becomes a living canvas. Between these structures, the earth glistens in green and the sea catches the colors, shimmering them back as light. To debunk the myth, it does not look like New York or LA, for no imitation can hold its essence.
I always wondered: if something so beautiful could subsist, what else might exist? The human brain is a curious mechanism, insatiable and always reaching. Mumbai made me feel infinite, yet that infinity began to feel contained. So I followed the oldest migration of ideas: west. Seeking a better education, I came to Los Angeles, the City of Angels, a place that promised reinvention.
Building a Second Home IN LA
My freshman year, I was laden with homesickness. Eventually, I realized that Los Angeles was too beautiful to be forgotten under my colossus of tears; after all, I only had four years. LA tells of a different cadence — softer and more deliberate, yet expansive in ways I had not known before; opportunities were ubiquitous. Sunlight stretched across freeways, jacarandas scattered like ink on the sidewalks and palm trees lined the horizon like punctuation marks of paradise. There was an opulence to it all, from the golden sprawl of the West Coast to the endless sweep of water meeting sky.
I apprehended Los Angeles as a meeting point of diversity, ambition and reinvention. It can be overwhelming, but once you learn to listen, the city offers itself back in unexpected ways. I built my own paradigm here, different from Mumbai’s: less crowded, less immediate, quieter yet no less alive. The loss of density and of the comforting noise that once subsumed me every day, eventually revealed something else: space. In that space, I found solitude that was not lonely. I learned that stillness could be creative, not empty. Mumbai made me ambitious. LA made me introspective. One taught me how to climb; the other taught me how to pause.
Balancing Two Worlds
The two cities mirror each other in light: Mumbai’s glittering skyline above the Arabian Sea, LA’s fading sun over the Pacific. Somewhere between them, I am incessantly failing, learning and finding balance. Regardless, I’m grateful for the second home Los Angeles has offered me and for the people who helped me find myself no matter where I go: my parents, who supported every inane dream; my friends, who held a homesick heart and embraced each version of my ever changing identity; the strangers who lent a smile or a word of advice and the mentors who showed up even when I did not have time to call. I keep my people like a folded map, held in the peripheries of my palms — creased with memories that point me toward my north star.
Sometimes, I still whisper “my city” when I look out from my Westwood balcony, whether it is palm trees and washed city lights in the monsoons or the Hollywood sign and music in the West Coast wind. Maybe home is not a place at all. Maybe it is the light that carries the weight of both worlds, soft enough to remember and strong enough to begin again. And in that light, I finally understand what it means to belong everywhere and nowhere at once.
