It was a normal dorm room you know, with the hospital blue colored walls, a Neem Tree leaning into the balcony, a lizard, a few spider webs, you know the usual room state which has been left empty for a while. There were a few writings on the walls, from the previous year seniors, who wished us luck for studies ahead.

It was away from home, and we unpacked everything, cleaned it all up, and my parents went back home the same day. They had to drop my brother off at his university. I hated staying away from home during childhood, going around on trips was not a concept, and I liked to be alone, and write, or you know just get bored at home, instead of visiting relatives. So, here was a kid, who had never been away from home, it was like, on most evenings, whenever there would be celebration, me and my grandpa used to stay at home, me working on my writings and him working with his paperwork.

Now imagine my surprise, when I felt at home, in this new dorm room at Pilani campus at BITS Pilani. I cannot explain this, why, but I was alone, but not scared, it felt like a place, I could belong. But every year, our rooms, sometimes hostels, in case of girls the blocks changed. And everytime, I visited a new dormroom, approaching the campus, I felt this feeling of drifting apart. Everytime, I went back to campus, it felt like meeting it again for the first time, like going into an unknown, unfamiliar place :)! But as soon as I approached the place, and I used to meet my friends, in an instant, everything seemed to accept me as their own. It was just not the place, it was these good people we met!

Here is a poem, a thread of memories, relating to this above feeling.

You went there for the first time,
white walls, not so pretty looking place,
full of dust, new paint,
lots of insects, a little damp,
a little green, strange,
new difficult, not so smooth,
rush, and a for a second you sit down,
and feel for some weird reason,
in that same instant it to be home

But as quickly it accepts you,
faster it will make you a stranger,
Just in a single instant,
it’s no more yours,
just in a bit you go ahead,
And you try to go back,
and check if still home

And you would find it move on,
the place is again whitewashed,
painted fresh,
your memories replaced,
with someone new who now calls it home

You would look at the walls trying to recollect,
but now it is all gone,
The quicker it accepts,
Faster it will move ahead.