I wrote this post after my India trip in October 2011. I was not ready to publish it then. The feelings the city evoked or failed to evoke strangled me, tortured me. I saved the draft and forgot about it. Yesterday during lunch at work, I spoke about my grandparents’ house – the soul of my life in Trichy. Strangely enough, the topic revolved around groundwater, the well and the borewell at my grandparents place. Water – a topic my grandfather was so passionate about and I shared some memories – and I did not feel the bitter pain I used to feel when I thought about those days. I felt emptiness and strange kind of peace. I think I am ready to publish this post today with a few tweeks and some sanitizing.

Our car ate up the distance between Chennai and Madurai. The highway was relatively free and we were keeping ahead of schedule. The roads led to Trichy – my childhood home. I peeped out of the windows like an excited kid – I was hoping I would see something familiar. It has been 3 years since I last visited Trichy and I know I would never voluntarily go back.

No bells rang – the city was unfamiliar. To be fair, we travelled in roads that were not around when I grew up and we were miles kilometers away from the area I grew up in. But still – the city has become a stranger just like the people there. I still have great memories of growing up there and I do not hate Trichy. It just feels alien and different.

A city – no matter which one it is, is alien and strange at many levels is’nt it?.

When my parents moved out of Trichy half-a-decade ago, I told myself and everyone who would listen that Trichy will always be home and Madras was just a place where my parents lived. But in the past year, I have made peace with myself – these days I say my parents stay in Madras and I studied in Trichy. I leave it there.

Goodbye Trichy! It was great knowing you