I was recently watching the movie 'The Man from Earth', again for the nth time, but analyzing the content of the movie this time around i.e. each and every dialogue of the movie. The movie is based on a rather intriguing concept of a fictional question and answer session which elucidates the evolution of mankind and institutions developed around it at its very core.
I am currently engaged on a project titled 'Content Analysis' which inevitably led to me think about this particular line from the dialogue between John Oldman (David Lee Smith) and Linda Murphy (Alexis Thorpe). In this interaction, John Oldman tells Linda that he can never go back home because, "He doesn't remember where home is" because of the urbanization of towns and villages over time.He further explains that this is the reason for the popular saying,"There is no going back home".
I graduated recently out of an engineering school and have started to miss the hallowed corridors of my alma mater already. My alma mater is a city within a big metropolitan city. One can call it as a school, a community, a city, a way of life i.e whatever one is most comfortable with but parting away from that way of life and settling in a new life with very different dynamics is not proving to be as easy as I thought.
The line "there is no going back home" created an overwhelming emotional feeling which led me to think about its validity.
Born and raised for 18 years in a particular city created a bond or to put it aptly a feeling of comfort which, grew over those 18 years, has surprisingly gone. I felt this strange sensation when I visited my 'home' some weeks ago before starting my new life. The city has grown in the last 4 years, people have changed,places have changed but more importantly the feelings associated with it have changed as a result of alterations in my perception of people, places and systems. The place where I grew up is not the same place now, the people I grew up with are not the same people now and same holds true for me:the person I was then, I am not the same now. How can I ever perceive them in the same manner. The most beautiful feeling I have experienced in a long time has been the immense increase in respect for those four walls, the relation of childish innocence and love coupled with the remembrance of those truly cherishing memories. But my home, my city, my life of those 18 years is not there anymore. As aptly put, "there is no going back home because it not there anymore".
I went for graduation to another city, a big metropolitan city which changes everyday. But I grew up in a way of life within that city. The life which formed me and destroyed me, made me smile and made me cry. The relation with one's alma mater is always deeper than anything. Its the place you enter as a teen-aged dreamy-eyed boy and come out as a hard and scarred man. I have my convocation in 2 weeks time and then I will officially part away from my community / my city /my people i.e. my life. Years will go by and I will change, it will change. The only thing constant would be the memories, those things which were said and done as a result of my ever evolving instinct and intent which has inevitably lead me to my present. It will never be the same again. It will never be my home again.
That left me affirmed in the belief "You can never go back home because it is not there anymore"
