The Return, Part One: The Moment That Split My Life

The beginning of a story I've held close for years - and am finally ready to tell.

Returning to the place I was born, but had never seen — until now.

There are moments that split your life into before and after.

For me, one of those moments was getting on a one-way flight back to India. Back to the country I was born in, but had never seen since I left at 9 months old. I went back with a name I didn’t grow up with, and a quiet hope that maybe—just maybe—I’d find the woman who gave birth to me.

I didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

But I did find something else: a version of myself that I hadn’t yet met.

The first trip back really felt like a homecoming. In the sense that when I landed in Mumbai, I immediately felt like I was home. It was chaotic, alive, and I felt connected in a way I’d never felt in the West. I remember riding in the back of the cab out of the airport into Juhu, the area I was staying in. We drove through crowds of people that looked like me, that had almost identical features, standing so close to the car. As I looked out the window, I said to myself, My God, I’ve never seen so many people, let alone so many people that look like ME.

I didn’t feel scared. I didn’t feel uncomfortable. I felt really connected.

I sat in the orphanage. I played with children who would soon be sent to families across the world to grow up with a story like mine. I went to the hospital I was born at. I saw it with my own eyes. I asked for my records. I sat outside on a bench and wept for hours.

Everything felt strange and very real at the same time.

I saw beauty everywhere—in the people, the chaos, the stillness between moments. But the pain was there too. The heartbreak. The poverty. I saw children who looked like they could’ve been my own—clothless, without food, begging, unbathed. And yet, they looked at me like one of their own. They called me Didi, elder sister. And I saw something in them I recognized in myself—the same strength I had carried my whole life. The same strength that led me back.

I traveled like a tourist that first time—Kerala (God’s country), Goa, Delhi, Rajasthan, Rishikesh, Varanasi. I celebrated Christmas with a stranger. In Rajasthan, I felt afraid, like an outsider again. I landed at night and saw men everywhere. I didn’t feel comfortable. But I also knew I’d be okay—it was my country, and I felt all the aunties and uncles looking out for me.

Even without sharing a language, we still communicated. There was a silent understanding—like they had my back.

And then I went to Varanasi. I don’t think I’ve ever felt what I felt there. Being by the Ganga, knowing my ancestors’ ashes were spread across that river—it was surreal. Knowing the Buddha gave his first sermon there. Knowing this was the land of Shiva, where he chose to live on Earth. The city is known for being ancient, one of the oldest living civilizations in the world. Ancient. Holy. Alive. I felt it in the streets. In the air. I felt renewed. I felt cleansed. I felt God.

I traveled into the Himalayas for a yoga teacher training and ended up injuring my back during Virabhadrasana III—Warrior Three. It’s a pose about balance, strength, focus. But I wasn’t present. I moved too fast. I wasn’t listening to my body. And just like that, I was on bed rest in the foothills of the Himalayas. I rode to the doctor on a motorbike, unsure how I’d make it out — let alone fly again. But every morning, I’d wake up, stare at the mountain peaks, and feel something shift. Even in stillness, I felt mesmerized. Humbled. Held.

I returned to Rajasthan. I felt creatively alive there. Then back to Maharashtra. To Pune. To my state. My birthplace.

I wore colors I never wore back home. Bright ones. Bold ones.

And then there was a boy.

It felt like it was meant to happen. A silent knowing I couldn’t ignore. We met one day in Mumbai—like meeting an old friend. It was natural. Chill. Like catching up with one of the old homies. On the way back to my AirBnB, he caught a ride with me. We were both heading north. Sitting in the backseat, I looked at him and said, “You’re an emotional one, aren’t you.”
He smiled. “How’d you know?”

He gave me a wallet—one he’d been traveling with. It had an eye on it, like Kali’s eye. He said it looked like mine. He said that’s why he bought it.

We parted ways but kept in touch. He offered to help document my story—my return. I didn’t know that I’d run into him again—on a beach in Goa, under the moonlight, like something out of a movie. He kept me waiting (I was annoyed), but still—there was comfort in having a friend in the motherland.

He was into photography. Storytelling. The raw and the real. And he had a story, too—though I didn’t know it yet.

To be continued…

I’ll meet you here again next week—with Part Two.