Where is my Home

 

With my literal nomadic lifestyle, I am often asked by random people I randomly meet upon random roads, where is my home. My stock answer: tonight it is here (wherever and whichever country/city/town/village/mountain/forests/etc I might be at that moment) tomorrow I don’t know. This baffles everyone to some degrees at the very least if not altogether. The next question that follows is if I have a family anywhere. And my stock answer: I have families everywhere. This puzzles them even further. In this post I wish to address these two fundamental factors of a human existence, his home and his family, and how do they relate to my lifestyle and beliefs.

 

Truly speaking my real home are the mountains around the globe and just like them my life and meager belongings too are scattered through the continents. To me a home is not a residential address where my physical letters get delivered or where I park my materialistic possessions. I do agree that just like anyone else I do need a physical address that is registered to my passport, voter card, bank account and such other documents that are needed to prove that I indeed do exist and am not merely a figment of someone’s imagination.

 

So in that way, if you so wish to call it, I do have a residential address where some real people stay and where you can send me a Christmas card. This address belongs to a friend in Delhi, India. All such letters, documents, etc that are delivered there remain there until I collect them somehow sometime. Often not for months or years. Since I physically don’t go there often, rarely to say the best. My only reason for going to this big boring polluted city is to either apply for a Visa or catch a flight in or out. En route I also check in and pick up my things (so called) from there.

 

Now coming to my own definition of a home or citizenship or any such kinship to a particular nation, city etc is purely notional. I remember some time back while I was addressing a conference in the US, I continuously referred myself as a citizen of the planet and that for that day the US City (Seattle) was my home to which, during the Q&A a matured lady asked me rather strongly if I wasn’t proud to be an Indian and why wouldn’t I admit that India was my home. Time was of essence and sensing that this lady wasn’t open to new ideas, I simply told her that India was as much my home as was the US or any other country in the world. Later I elaborated my beliefs to a larger gathering that evening who were open to new ideas.

 

Where is my home? Where is your home? Is it some address in some country and city where you physically are at that moment when someone asks you that question or where you park your worldly possessions? I attach the greatest importance to living in the moment, for now, at this very instance. So to me my home is exactly where I am, mind, body, heart and soul. No debate or dilemma in that within my mind.

 

Since I live deliberately choosing exactly where I wish to be doing what I desire, I am always where I want to be doing exactly what I want to do. So for me my home is wherever I am at this very moment. Unlike many, I never wish to be somewhere else while physically being somewhere else. Even if it isn’t my favorite place, say a city like Delhi or London or NYC, if I happen to be there for whatever reason, it is exactly where I am-mind body heart and soul. Even if there is a tad bit of regret initially, my ‘living in the moment’ kicks in very quickly to set my mind at peace and joy that I am home.

 

If you happen to meet me upon Everest, or somewhere in Harlem, or in the backwaters of the African Savannah, or upon Champ Elyse, I would be equally home at each of these geo locations. That I prefer to spend most of my time in mountains, forests, in the laps of nature is my choice and my way of stating that most of my homes are within the folds of nature, be it anywhere in the planet upon any continent.

 

Now if we look at the second criteria of calling a place as home where you keep or store your worldly belongings then too I can’t pick up one place. To begin with I have very little materialistic possessions. Majority are my climbing clothing and gear, few tee shirts, few shirts, one laptop, one jeans, couple of pens, one low end mobile phone and two swimming trunks. Suffice to say the laptop is a recent gift from a friend that came to me at the beginning of the current pandemic and the mobile is a gift from another that came to me only six months back in the midst of the pandemic. As I am not moving much and am mostly confined within the mountains of a particular Indian State, these two objects are with me. I am not sure what would happen once the restrictions lift and I start traveling again.   

 

The two swimming trunks I am not sure lie where, I am guessing they would be with some friends who live by the sea. The jeans I am currently wearing so that is with me. Now the bulk of my possessions are in my climbing clothing and gear, of which I still have plenty. Over decades I have worked for and with some of world’s top outdoor brands as their brand ambassador, test climber, reviewer, etc and in return they have heaped upon me enormous amount of clothing and technical gear, which was and still is impossible for me to use or consume alone.

 

And throughout my life I have given away these things to less fortunate climbers, porters, sherpas, students, etc, keeping only a little for myself. Yet each year more boxes would arrive. While my mom was alive they would arrive at her address and her three bedroom house would be full of mountaineering clothing and equipment. You would laugh if I told you that in Delhi winter my mother was dressed from head to toe in the most expensive Everest summit clothing, for she had a mortifying fear of the cold. Thank God her feet were too small for my climbing boots else she would be seen walking in the park in them too I am sure.

 

These boxes would also arrive at different countries if I so desired and directed. While my mother was alive my so called home (if you must insist) was her home since I regularly visited her once in a while and picked up my letters etc and the mountaineering boxes that awaited my arrival. After she passed away I realized that the best option for me would be to have my climbing gear dumps in different countries. So now I have gear dumps in NZ, Europe (Switzerland, Greece, France, Italy, Iceland, etc), The USA, Canada, Argentina, Chile, India, Nepal and few other countries that I have now forgotten. I wish I could have a dump in Antarctica too (joking of course).

 

It is said that home is where the heart is, and my heart is always in the mountains or wherever the rest of my physical body is. So today, as I write these words, I am not only in a mountain, where my heart is, but I am also in a beautiful pristine village peopled by lovely simple people who are also my family and friends as the mountains that surround me all around.

 

I am in a room from where I can see the endless panorama of snow covered peaks to the north and an array of green fields to the south. Where I wake up with the twittering of Himalayan Bulbul and Long Tailed Shrikes and sleep with the far-flung hooting of barn owls. Where winds bring me the news of my beloved mountains for I sense that it is snowing up above and where there is not a sign of the pandemic neither any signs of modernity. Where people are not driven by greed but by compassion and a sense of humanity. Where even strangers are greeted like long lost friends and you find shelter and food within every home.

 

I am home, yet I am away, here is where I belong, yet I belong everywhere. Yes, I agree that my letters and official documents are still being delivered where I am not but then that is the last vestige of civilization and social norms that I must abide by since I am still subject to some of them.

 

So where is my home?

 

Tonight I am here (where is here you might wonder) tomorrow I don’t know.