Kaham ke rehne wala hai aap??

You might have encountered this question many times, if you are living somewhere outside your home town or native. I have a definite answer, as had left my home state only a decade ago, that too spending my life there more than two decades.
But I, a few years ago had met two freinds. One, who says, encountering the question of "Kaham ke rahne wala hai aap?" is really tough. Because, his grand father had migrated to Kenya during the British era. His father spend all his formative years in Kenya. And his mother is Kenya-born. And, when he was about 8 years old his father migrated to England. So, he has to or forced to say atleast this much to satisfy someone who ask the question. 

Another friend, who is of a Srilankan Tamil origin, now lives in Malysia shared the similar experience viz a viz the question.

Today, when my freinds invited to a meeting on issues of migrants, these interesting experiences came to my mind. 

However, I enjoy ineracting with people living with such experiences, because, it give inroads into the phenomenon of "living in exile". My interest in encountering the exiles, has, over the years got extended to reading many literary works, written in exile as well. Many works of Neruda, Taslima Nasreen, Faiz, Solshenitzin - just to recollect in a second - may lured my and still it lures. 

But I sometimes think that how can I decode the core of writing in exile. I want to sum up the code of the feeling of life in exile through a few lines written by a Tibetan poet born and brought up in India. It is taken from "Muses in Exile", a collection of poems written by Tibetan poets in India. 

“I am Tibetan.
But I am not from Tibet.
Never been there.
Yet I dream of dying there.’ (5)

Tick the white pebbles
and the funny strange leaves.
Mark the curves
and cliffs around
for you may need
to come home again.”

I want to write more, an entire exile diary soon !!!