Month: September 2023

A beautiful sunset, waves crashing, and the cool Pacific breeze. From what my parents tell me, San Francisco was a breathtaking dream. Despite being born there, I was never able to experience that dream, as I was set to move to India when I was just a toddler. 

In India, I grew up with just my grandparents for my first two years there. They gave me much more than what I could have ever asked for. Those two years built a great attachment for me with my grandparents. As those two years passed, I thought I was going back to San Francisco. Quite the opposite had happened, my mom and sister both moved to India. While I wished for me to move back with my family to California, I was stuck in India. Shortly after my family had moved back to India, India became my home, especially since I had no real memories of California as I was so young. School in India was great, apart from the constant notetaking and the brutal exams. The weather was great (maybe not as pleasant as California) and the community was great. I made great friends, did well at school, and even pursued many interests I had at that point in my life. I had found my place. Somewhere that I never wanted to leave in my lifetime. 

One day, as the streetlights had turned on, marking my cue to get back home from the hours of playing badminton with my friends. As I step into the house, I see my mom prancing around the living room. She looks at me either anxiously or eagerly. I took the clue that she was about to reveal something to me, some sort of big news. She revealed it with great excitement, “We are moving to Canada!” For a brief moment, I matched her excitement, hugging her with great happiness. Apart from my happiness lay other emotions. Just as I was about to sleep for the night, it dawned on me that moving to Canada would mean I had to leave my entire life I built for 9 years in India. My friends, cousins, school, and most importantly, my grandparents. 

We packed as much as we wanted to take to Canada, said our goodbyes to everyone, and boarded the plane. The 14-hour plane ride gave me some time to think. I questioned everything I possibly could about living my life in Canada; what are the schools like? What are the people like? Will I make good friends? The question that lingered in my head for the longest was, will I be able to call this place home? Many people associate “home” with words like “comfort”, “safe” and “solace”; I was one of these people. I wondered if this meaning would change because of the completely new environment that I was going to be living in. 

Tray tables are stowed away, seatbelts on, and window blinds open. I look outside to gloomy skies and a boring landscape. My first impression of Canada was not off to a great start. As we grab our bags and head out, a fresh breeze of cold air hits my face, and I am not amused. We stay in an apartment until the house is ready for us to move into. As we got settled in Canada, I started to notice a routine and even a sense of belonging. Although the schooling system wasn’t the greatest, I met some great people who I still call friends. I began acknowledging this place as home. 

My junior high was filled with amazing memories. Eighth grade came with a shock, maybe numerous shocks. As I started preparing information regarding the high schools that would be beneficial for me, we all got an email. Spring break had been extended by two weeks (surprise number 1). I rejoiced, thinking about the two weeks more that I got to spend with my friends. This “break” was made permanent, where our school was completely remote (surprise number 2). Following this, I came back home one day from playing with my friends to my parents looking at me the same way they did when I was told about moving to Canada. I joked, “Are we moving to another country?” They replied with, “How did you know?” (surprise number 3). 

This time, we were moving to America, my birthplace. To my disappointment, it wasn’t the dream of a place, California, it was Illinois. 

While I was still disheartened about leaving my home in Canada after 3 short-lived years, I was relatively excited to mark yet another adventure in my life. I realized that my idea of “home” wasn’t the people that existed by me, the weather, the physical home, or even the way of living in said place. It was rather the people that I associated home with, which were my parents and sister. 

As I settled into my life in Naperville, I found the meaning of belonging, I found my home. 

It was in 4th grade when my mom had a surprise for me as I got back from school. Was it the new PlayStation, a new RC car, or a new pair of shoes? To my disappointment, it was books. Of all things…books. At this time, all I knew of books were textbooks and picture books, neither of which were particularly appealing to me. The packaging for this set of books however was quite unusual, it was a brightly colored box and had forty thin comic books in it. These books were captivating because of their wide array of colors and oddly shaped characters, and as a boy who was 9 years old, I couldn’t have asked for anything more in books. Despite these alluring characteristics, I held off on reading these comics for a considerable amount of time. Until one summer day, when it was too hot to play outside and my Nintendo ran out of battery. I sat on my bed, scanning my room trying to find something to cure me of my boredom. My sight fell on those books. So I decided to read the first few pages of the book, and I was fascinated. Right then, I sat down and started reading the first book. The book was focused on the protagonist, Asterix, and his sidekick (whose name I can’t remember), who was an astonishingly large character and loved boar. Each different book seemed to have a different focus, similar to crime TV shows where each episode is focused on one perpetrator/crime. I remember in a book that Asterix was in Egypt with Cleopatra, and when he confronted Caesar in Rome. These books took me all around the world, experiencing so many adventures and gaining much knowledge while I was simply sitting on a couch. I thought of reading these books as a way to simply enter a new world. A world of peak imagination where no real-world laws or rules seemed to apply. My means of entertainment slowly shifted from watching unrealistic kids’ shows to an unrealistic comic book, but reading a book made me feel like my time was better spent. I started to cultivate the idea of reading for entertainment, and maybe even passion. I had found a new path that I was set to explore. I ended up reading to the point where I lost track of time, finishing multiple books in a sitting. This is something that, up until this point, I had never done. The feeling was new and strange, but I was hooked. In a matter of days, I ended up finishing the entire series. I felt greatly accomplished, a boy who could barely sit for half an hour to read, spent hours reading these books. As I look back at these books, it wasn’t simply the bright colors that engaged me, it was the story and the way I envisioned myself as one of the characters. These books helped me realize that reading is not boring and plain and that many books lead to exciting adventures in a completely new world, fiction or nonfiction. These books hold great value in my life, especially on my path to fostering a passion for reading. As I had found tranquility when I needed it most. 

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