I was brought up in a rural part of Nepal, and I spent about five years in the city of Kathmandu — the only metropolis in the country. Considering the North American and European standard, Kathmandu is not a big city; it is far smaller than Cleveland, far smaller than even Toledo. There are few tall buildings but there is not a single skyscraper. There is not metro railway. Once upon a time, there was a trolley bus service which no longer operates. Water supply is still a problem. Sometimes, a fifteen minute of commute takes an hour due to a traffic jam.

Yet, it is home to about 2 million people and by far the biggest city in Nepal.

I came to the city of Kathmandu in the summer of 2011, and for the first few months, I felt more as an alien, and less as someone who is a part of the city. I was new to the city, new to the peculiar surrounding, and it was my fault to expect the same sort of friendliness I experienced in my village abode. I was naïve about the city life and sometimes, I even felt, I was living in an entirely different country. I was not quite prepared for what the city was to offer. It took me three more years to get prepared for such offerings and to finally realize, I was now a part of the city, and it was the place I could rightly call my home.

To me, home is a place where someone’s heart and soul lies, and I had thought, it is more about the people, and less about the surrounding. I had thought, home is a place wherein every ten minutes of walk, I find someone I know. My definition of the homeland was rooted in my rural upbringings which no longer implies to the big cities like New York and Chicago and even the smaller cities like Cleveland and Toledo. I now strongly believe, home is more about the surrounding and less about the people. I feel, even if I visit the city of Kathmandu after fifty years, and I don’t find a single person of my acquaintance, I will still feel myself at home.

There were days when it was very difficult for me to adjust to a new place. But, after living my life as a wanderer for about seven years, it is now easier for me to adjust myself to new surroundings, and these days, within a few months of stay, I feel myself at home. That place of stay — to me — becomes a friend whom I have met after a very long time, so long that I can’t remember when I met him for the last time, the only thing I can assert is that he is my friend and I have met him somewhere, sometime.

That might be one of the reasons why I feel like at home in the city of Bowling Green after about a year of stay. That might be one of the reasons why during the last summer, I felt like at home in the city of Cleveland even within a stay of a couple of months, and even if I was not that much fascinated with the city. All these places and times and surrounding are perhaps written in one’s destiny, and it is difficult for a man to choose a single place in the world, and consider that place his only home.

There are travelers who travel across places for amusement. There are historians who meditate deeply on the history of the big cities and link their findings with the evolution of entire human civilization. There are architects and urban planners who analyze the landscapes of the cities through some nerdy measures. I belong to none and my observations are the observations of a common man’s eyes perplexed and dazzled with the landscapes of the metropolis and their grandeur.

When you travel across several cities and spend some months, you always find something in the city close to what you are as a person. In some sense or other, it becomes your friend, a companion, and a soul mate. You fall in love with the city, and for those who are lucky enough, the city loves them too, but for those who are unlucky, the city becomes a tale to be forgotten.

The modern-day people travel across countries and even continents. They live in the urban areas and in the rural landscapes. For wanderers who belong to nowhere, home is everywhere they have lived in, and away is the place where they have never been to.