A place to roost at sunset: Choosing a retirement home for myself

“The grass is always greener on the other side” (of your mind) is an understatement when it comes to picking a retirement home. Typically, a non-resident Indian would proudly restitch his umbilical code and make a dash home to build what would not only be the envy of his neighbours but would put the seven wonders of the world to shame. For most of them, the dream to build a museum of nostalgia back home and a little heaven on a yonder shore is the holy grail.

In my case, life has never been so eventful. I had forgotten to pick up the umbilical code that had fallen off in a pile of scorched leaves by the wayside during this unstoppable journey. I had taken the Ulyssian oath that “I cannot rest from travel”. I had forgotten, or avoided, to look in the rear-view mirror until the low-fuel warning constantly blinked of late.

I was recently looking for a place to park myself until the chariot gently stops for me. I had always dreamt of a little space by the side of the placid Phewa Lake in Nepal's Pokhara where I could watch the first rays set fire to the ice cap that the Annapurna sports in freezing mornings. A cottage amid the lush golf courses in Malaysia's Skudai Johor was another fantasy.

A water cottage in Port Dickson, a busy Strait of Malacca port; a shikhara in Kashmir's Dal Lake; a chadar tent on the banks of Pangong Tso, the saltwater lake at an altitude of 5,360 metres above sea level on the Indo-China border; a little nest in the picturesque Bavarian Schliersee; Bacharach On The Rhine, a medieval village of castles and vineyards straight from a story book — the mind meanders through the magical places you fantasise or have experienced. Strangely, none of the American destinations stayed in my cognition. The solitude I always dream of wasn't the sort that nestles in the isolated and eerie communities around San Jose in California.

As dreams make way for reality, I am looking at options that are down to earth. India, where I come from, is a place where you can always blind-pick. Drop a hat from the sky, and go and live wherever it drops: plains, hills and mountains — snow-capped or lush green — small towns and metropolises, beaches and banks, islands and atolls. Destinations are aplenty in the subcontinent but the heart refuses to stay put even at the place where you learnt to toddle into the realities of life.