For many migrants, the answer to “Where are you from?” slowly changes. It stops carrying footnotes, clarifications, or explanations. For one long-time resident of Delhi, that shift came only recently — after nearly 18 years in the capital, the instinctive response is now simply “Delhi”, with the earlier qualifier of being “originally from Madhya Pradesh” fading in urgency.
Yet, despite spending an entire adult life in the city, the sense of belonging remains incomplete. What is missing is not familiarity with roads or routines, but the absence of people who root one to a place — neighbours who transform a city into a home.
Growing up with a ‘hood’
In a small hamlet called Bhumkapura in Madhya Pradesh’s Kesla panchayat, neighbourhood was not a concept but a lived reality. A cluster of Adivasi homes, a shared handpump, and open streets defined childhood. Life unfolded outdoors, shaped by collective care, shared meals, and an unspoken understanding that everyone belonged to everyone else.
This was community without labels — where neighbours watched children grow, stumble, change, and find their voice. Privacy existed, but it never came at the cost of connection.
Cities, walls and withdrawal
That sense of shared life slowly dissolved with movement — first to a conservative small town, then to a residential college campus, and eventually to Delhi. Each transition brought opportunity, education, and independence, but also a steady retreat indoors.
In the metropolis, neighbours became strangers, and homes became borders rather than bridges. Even moments of crisis revealed how thin these connections were. In one instance, it was not a neighbour or landlord, but a sanitation worker who stepped in to help — highlighting a quiet contradiction of urban life, where the most transactional relationship turned out to be the most humane.
Living without a ‘hood’
Frequent relocations due to rising rents and changing jobs have meant polite exchanges, fleeting familiarity, but no lasting neighbourhood. Everyone seems aware of the temporary nature of urban proximity, shaped by economic pressures and the fear of vulnerability.
As cities grow faster and lonelier, many urban residents find themselves citizens without communities — present, productive, but emotionally unanchored.
In the end, one may become a vecino — both citizen and neighbour in name — but still live without a vecindad, a neighbourhood where one can truly belong.