What is home? A simple question with a complex answer, so complex that even
the heart of the wisest struggles to articulate it. For some, home is made of bricks
and walls where family resides, a birthplace, familiar streets one grew up with,
the scents that shaped one’s childhood or the language that naturally flows off
one’s tongue. But the more deeply we look, the more this concept becomes
tainted and complex. So, we need to ask ourselves: Is home really a place we
come from or is it the place we return to in our memories, which gives us
comfort and oneness? Is it merely geographical or a romantic construction of
the mind which contrasts with reality? Is it a concrete foundation of bricks and
stones or a fragile construction out of stories, emotional narratives and shifting
realities?
In this ever-evolving time, where humanity has faced wars, pandemics and
genocide, the phenomenon of diaspora has turned from a geographical or
philosophical question to an existential one. Diaspora in its simplest definition
means the condition of being away from one’s homeland. But diaspora is
not just about geographical distance but also the emotional distance that brings
in transformation, constructs our realities, identity, memory and belonging. It is
about learning—just as life is never stagnant or constant, so home is never fixed
but a moving landscape within us.
The traditional idea of homeland assumes stability: one soil, one culture, one
language, one identity. But for millions who live outside the land where they
were born, either by force or choice, homeland comes in multiple layers and
phases through memory, experiences and sometimes even longing. For some,
like the sages, home is not at all physical but something which transcends this
material world. This article explores how diaspora reshapes the idea of home,
asking the fundamental question: Do we belong to our home or does our home
belong to us?
We often speak of home as a place of comfort and belonging, yet we forget that
home itself is constantly shifting like the seasons. What feels like home at one
stage of life may feel completely strange and foreign at another. For a child, home
may be its physical environment where he is growing up—its warmth, its colors,
sounds and routines. But as he grows up, he starts adding to this definition: his
community, people and even nation. It takes on more abstract meaning and
understanding becomes layered yet not complex.
Even for people who never left their home, the definition becomes layered. But
for those who left their home for education, job, marriage or because their
conditions forced them, it becomes very complex. Even when one returns to their
home, only to realise they do not fully belong there anymore—the people have
changed, the landmarks have changed, the smell of the air even feels
unfamiliar—the individual realises that this place is indeed home but not
complete. Something is present but yet absent.
This very moment is the gateway into the diasporic condition; it reveals that
home is not a permanent identity but more like a relationship that continuously
needs to be negotiated. If even for people who never left home the idea becomes
so layered, then what does it mean for those who indeed moved away? For some
it becomes complicated and for some it becomes creative. Salman Rushdie’s
quote, “The past is a country from which we all have emigrated,” summarises
this whole experience.
One of the most powerful ideas about this perspective of diaspora comes from
Salman Rushdie’s phrase “imaginary homelands.” He argues that the person who
walked away from home can never see it exactly for what it is; they always see it
through the prism of memory— fragmented, romanticised, exaggerated and
even frozen in time.
Memories can never be preserved but only be reconstructed; they are ever
evolving and transforming. Home soon becomes a place in the mind, an
emotional geography rather than a political one. The mother’s voice, the
fragrance of her food from the kitchen, the sound of your loved ones in the
language so close to mind and heart—these small fragments of memory stay
with the individual, which may no longer exist. A person in diaspora tends to
remember all the healthy and good things about home and returns one day just
to realise the reality is quite different, yet the individual makes the decision to
carry these memories within and continues to think of home in a beautified
manner.
Home is not the soil we stand on but the story we tell ourselves about where we
come from. Two siblings who have migrated from the same place may have
different ideas of home: for one it might be very beautiful and colorful while for
the other it can be very traumatic and dark. Thus, diaspora does not simply
displace people geographically; it reconfigures their memories, creating
homelands made of emotions rather than soil.
For some like Mahmoud Darwish and Farida Khalaf, diaspora becomes essential
to finding their true selves. Not only for them but for us, diaspora acts like a
teacher. It teaches us something radical: Home is not something we inherit but
something we make, something we choose. We choose to move forward, we
choose to forget, we choose to make and recreate.
A migrant may choose to hold on to culture, beliefs and practices, but one might
recreate it to fit their new identity or completely let go of it and form a new
identity in a new land. Both choices are valid; both form diasporic identity. This
is because diasporic individuals have multiple realities and layered homes and
identities.
Diaspora turns home into a mobile, evolving idea and never a fixed origin. Home
can be a childhood memory, the city one lives in, mother tongue, the dreams they
nurture. Home can even be a person or an animal or even something beyond the
realm of the physical. Thus, when we ask a diasporic person “Where are you
from?” the answer is never simple. They may be from here, there, from nowhere
and everywhere. Their citizenship may lie in one country and their emotions in
another, or vice versa.
One of the defining features of diaspora is loss—loss of home, family, language,
culture, familiarity. But there is a creative, transformative side to it. For those
who leave their homeland or whose family left generations before, home doesn’t
simply vanish but rebuilds. Diasporic homes are often full of recreated festivals,
mixed languages, cuisines and nostalgia- filled narratives. A person living in the
United States may decorate their home with Kashmiri decorative crafts, giving a
touch of their homeland to this new home. These are not imitations; they are
new beginnings, their own recreated homes. Some may worry that this might
dilute or tamper with the original culture. But culture, like this world, is ever-
changing and evolving. It is not something to be preserved but to be embraced.
This act of recreating is deeply human, a form of comfort in the state of
displacement, and helps them stay in touch with their past while actively
creating the present and future through resilience, imagination and emotional
depth.
In the true sense, diaspora does not simply fragment home; it enriches it. Yet the
deepest question that diaspora raises is whether anyone truly belongs to a single
home at all. Even those who never migrate feel alienation. The feeling of
alienation is universal; this creates artists, poets, sages and even people like us.
Tracing our identity or reminiscing about it is a beautiful concept, yet it can turn
into something dangerous and deadly—a theme we see often in Indian politics.
Nothing is the same or static in this universe: culture changes, seasons change,
political identities shift, homes break, people meet, they move away, humans
even grow old. How can home stay the same, and thus how
can anyone trace themselves back or truly belong anywhere? This reveals a
profound truth: Belonging is not a condition; it is a feeling, and feelings can
change.
We often ask the question “Where is home?” Perhaps we have been asking the
wrong question all along. The real question is: What feels like home? Or what do
we call home and why? The answer may change tomorrow, and that ought to be
acceptable. In the end, home is not the place we return to. Home is a creation
which continues throughout life. Reality is just a question of perspective.
Diaspora does not destroy home; it just makes us question its identity and
reveals its complexity.
We don’t simply belong to one homeland; we carry many homelands within us,
through memories, our physiological features, language and even experiences.
And perhaps this is the reality of this bittersweet condition. Although the
memories ache in our hearts and make us long, they also let us craft home with
intention. They let us form attachments based not on obligations or tradition but
on emotional truth.
In the end, the question is not “Where is home?” but “What is home?” We are not
exiles from home but the authors of it, as home is not something we return to but
something we continue to create.
