I am home

It's so hard to describe the love I have for this place.

And by this place I mean Sangam.

I have spent pretty much the first two days within the grounds here, letting Little Owl find her way and adjust to the climate.

 The pool is icy cool (it is winter after all) but that didn't stop Little Owl keep asking to go back in!

Little Owl has been welcomed with open arms by all of the staff here, literally, many of them I have know since I first came here in 2002.  It's been great catching up with old friends and introducing them to my daughter.

Another person we got a chance to see was Tarabi, who lives just across the road (the road which is now 4 lanes wide, each lane made up of bikes, rickshaws, buses and lorries travelling side by side and darting around each other).

This is just one lane.  Note how the 'traffic' is going in both directions.  Now times this by four.

 The whole neighbourhood has changed, its developed a lot over the last 5 years, the houses have got bigger (they literally just add another storey or two on top) and the temples, church and mosque all appear to, if not grown, had a little bit more decoration added to them.  

It feels wealthier all round, which is maybe not surprising when you see the hug new development on the horizon, a high-tech complex housing some of the world's call centres.

Little Owl and Tarabi

Tarabi has been welcoming guest from Sangam into her house for many decades.  She used to work at Sangam but is now well into her retirement (and her eighties!)

I could write lots more about the little things Little Owl has been up to, the people she has met, but what I'm struggling to do is describe what this place does to me, how it makes me feel.

It is home form home.  Not the cosy cuddly sort of home, but a place where I feel just a little bit more like me.  I am somehow more complete when I am here.  See, I told you I would struggle...

India is an assault on all of your senses, the sounds the smells.... and yet within the walls of Sangam, its all just a little calmer.  Sure you can hear the call to prayer (I just love that sound), and the siren at the ammunition factory announcing the change of shift (its a sound that gets you inside somehow), and even the roar of the planes from he nearby airport and the constant honking of horns from the road... but its all just a bit muted from inside, like life is buzzing round furiously out there but within the walls of Sangam its just going a bit softer, a bit calmer and with a bit more love.