Alien in a Familiar City or Familiar in an Alien City???

It is a question that i keep asking myself as i leave my native place-Bangalore-after every brief visit. Its a city I have been visiting on an average of 3 times every year for the past 20 years of my life(Well..to put it in other words,all my life i mean. Hehe..) And every time, the city never fails to punch me in the face with this same complex question.

Sometimes I feel completely alienated in this city which "ought to" have since long been familiar to me. And innumerable examples I present before thyself to bear testimony to the abovesaid miserable fact.
Alienation No:1- Firstly and foremostly, its the alienation I feel at being away from my hometown where I am this free bird, especially so during the past 2 years, thanks to the two-wheeler i "inherited" from my mom, freaking out at whatever limited hangout options the lil conservative city(Trivandrum) has to offer, with those friends who have grown to mean everything to me in the past few years, to even almost and completely being there as a family i must say. So now, every moment I spend alone in a buzzing city like Blore is a real pain. Everywhere I find cool lads n lasses hanging out, freaking out, having pure unbridled fun at the many CCDs, at the many eateries (starred or roadside.. hehe) popping in panipuris and chaats, at movies, shopping(read window shopping) etc etc... and u can do nothing but sit all despondent missing your own friends. It sometimes drives you into your crazy hair-tearing "ready-to -blow-tantrums" moods. Take my word-Itzz terrible to be in a hot and happening city without your friends!!! You feel nothing short of an alien kidnapped away from Mercury(or Mars)
Alienation No:2-N yea, just when you thought things can't get worser if you decide to quit shopping and sit home, you are proven grievously mistaken. Suddenly you find yourself hijacked by a maddening crowd of relatives and family-friends invading your private space and time: people whom your grandparents swear are "our most dearest and nearest and closest", but whom you have almost never seen in your brief visits over the 20years of your life. Its sometimes surprising to the point of irritation as to how many of them know every damn thing that has been happening in your life, when you dont even know who the hell they are!!!And you can do nthing but helplessly nod and smile and chit-chat with them like an odd machine at work , and yea..remember-most of the time you dont even know who you are talking to!!!
Alienation No:3-The long list of cousins who are doing well and who have done well in the country and abroad also torture my precariously built self-confidence. Everybody quite obviously "expects" the same out of you and God knows what the hell gave them that idea!!!(though i must say that their confidence in me has sometimes boosted up my own)[Anywaz itz a topic i dont wanna indulge in too much at this point]
Alienation No:4-The Obvious-the language gap, the cultural gap. the ideological gap.. etc.. u name it. Well, shopping is the only means and modes of killing time when I am in Blore and quite naturally its a passtime which requires a strong hold over the regional language, and which exactly happens to be on my "Things I Lack" list. Well, I aint hopeless at it though; I can manage a tight-rope-walking act with whatever little i know. But even then these gaps can realy get onto your nerves sometimes n make you feel a little more alienated and outta place!!!

Now over to the familiar things that manages to sweeten up my visits- I must say that they are all mostly abstract things, mostly memories associated with the city. Naturally, having spent most of my vacations in this city all through my childhood years, a lot of my childhood memories do centre around this city. Amidst all the shop-vendors and the general public to whom i am just yet another "mallu" scaning through the streets, talking gibberish and even worse, tainted kannada, sticking out like a sore thumb, there are a few thinhs that keep me connected to the place-especially the neighbourhood, the beautiful street lined with huge trees on either sides, the cool soft breeze, the silence it caresses, the sugarcane and chaat trams being pushed along, the kids at tehir game of cricket and shuttle and cycling, the colony that it once was and is no more, the sugarcane juice at the other end of the road next to the swimming pool, the ever mooth-watering chaats and roasted corn which have become my only major attractions that draws me towards the city these days, the same old shopping stret nearby that we frequent every visit, the language that i keep trying to learn like a little kid, the Tenali Raman stories that my grandfather once used to narrate, the once irritating cousin who has now blossomed into a young woman who looks upto me for support and strength.
Yeaaa.....these are some of those familiar nostalgic and close-to-heart etchings carven out in an alien city... many more in fact.. but... cant realy place those assorted bits of my heart...

Yep, so winding up, Ladies and Gentlemen, herez my point simply put- My every visit to Blore is a BItter-Sweet Experience, Entangled in a Web of Complex Thoughts, Questions and Incomplete Answers..........