I am so elated to be writing this dispatch on home turf. It has been two days since I landed in India. I haven’t stepped out of my bestie’s apartment ever since I arrived here directly from the airport. I have been soaking in her presence, even though she wasn’t home when I got in. She had moved apartments three years ago, almost. I’ve been re-orienting myself within what constitutes her present familiar and every day and delighting in the discoveries I make of things that once belonged to me, that inhabited my old apartment, that I had bequeathed to her care. A framed photograph by an ex-flatmate of Shahpur Jat, books, ceramic bowls I served countless meals in, and other such paraphernalia that I had felt teary-eyed parting with. Returning three years later and seeing these objects once again evokes a warm, fuzzy feeling. Unexpectedly, there’s an accompanying sense of detachment that I couldn’t foresee at the time.

By the time you read this column, I will be reunited with my parents in Goa. Once there, I must go through all the cartons I had delivered to our home in Navelim back in May 2020. I had, at the time, already sorted through all my books, only keeping the ones to which I felt most attached or that were signed by their authors. Now I’ll have to make a narrower selection so I can send the ones I want to keep to my new home in Tramin and perhaps donate the rest to a reading library in Goa. I know there is a box of objects from my old apartment that I felt unable to part with then. I’ve already decided I will gift them to a dear friend who has recently moved to Goa. The thought of this final dissemination of my things makes me feel lighter. Living with my mother-in-law who is the opposite of a hoarder has helped me learn to embrace minimalism for its elegant possibilities. I no longer archive things like before. I have committed to the hygiene of getting rid of things that have possibly outlived their use or not adopting too much to begin with. Emptying out my apartment back in 2020 helped me understand the vital importance of living less messily, of having a regularly updated inventory of what exists within one’s household in order to avoid cluttering. It’s a liberating feeling.