रूह लखनऊ में अटकी है, देख गोमती तर जाएगी

I often ask people in my class, where are they from? For often, it reveals a lot about them. Yes, it may lead to some stereotyping but well, clichés become such because they survive the test of time.

However, at times, I received a puzzling response. People couldn't pin-point because their families shifted a lot. Each such time, I felt a little pity for those because they are rootless ones. They don't belong to anywhere. I wondered and pitied the nomads the same way.

In fact, I read somewhere that when Punjabis shifte to much sought after Canada or UK, they do not sell out the land in their pind (village) for generations because that is where they belong to. That is where their roots are.

I always have known that I belong to Lucknow and Lucknow belongs to me. Although, for a long while, I've felt a bit irritated with the place and somewhat disconnected too because all my friends have shifted away, home is shifted to a new one, and city has also gone on without me. But something more happened today.

Someone asked for some antique shops in Lucknow and I couldn't recall anything. Someone asked for some routes and I couldn't recall anything. In that moment, I understood what those Punjabis would have felt when they sold off the land in their pind. In that moment, I didn't know where do I belong to. In that moment, I felt that tremor of rootlessness.

P.S. - it doesn't matter where and how it happens but when I die, I want to be cremated beside Gomti because no matter where I live... that is where I belong. That is where I have always belonged to.