My mother's hand-drawn sketch of her ancestral home nestled in an idyllic small town in India is prominently displayed in the family room of our house in San Jose. This is the house where she spent her childhood. No one lives in this house now, but it still stands in its majestic splendor, in a sleepy old town, a reminder to us all of its glorious past, a place that has been home to many generations of my mother's family. It wasn't just the house, it was also the city. She used to say that her low tolerance for street snobbery was "perhaps a consequence of her small-town thinking", the town in India where she grew up for the first sixteen years of her life. life. This has always been his home. Not the big city of San Jose, California, where she spent the next thirty-five years of her life. When I was very young, I never really understood why that picture on the wall meant “home” to her, why she expected me to share her sense of belonging there too. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay I used to indignantly defend my turf, the great city of San Jose where I was born. Now I understand. After being lucky enough to spend many innocent summers in this small town where my mother was born, I feel that I also have a place in our ancestral home in this small town. My sense of belonging doesn't just come from experiencing "home" there, from the smell of my favorite food, from the comforting sound of my grandmother's voice, from the loving embrace of my mother's sister and the wet noise of the aging German Shepherd. The sense of belonging we all have at home there also stems from the culture of this city itself, which I have experienced and love. Small towns always start their territory with a symbolic and sturdy sign, while their finish lines are always a little blurry and a little contested. It only takes one visitor to change the landscape of moods and conversations in a small town. The only prospect more frightening for a resident of leaving their small town is the prospect of never being able to leave it again. And those who leave often come back one day. Small town residents have small homes with generous patios and large gardens; their hearts were governed more by goodness than by ambitions. Rush hour traffic often grinds to a halt as vehicles stop to let a group of ducks cross the main road at their leisurely pace without honking or scaring them. Young mothers and old grandmothers in small towns still have a whole bunch of untold bedtime stories and the patience to share them with all the kids in the neighborhood. Science is still a little rare, philosophy is still a little old-fashioned, and religion is still a little outdated. still a little tolerant in small towns. Families eat hearty, uninhibited (and long) meals on a long table. Together. Seven days a week. Births and funerals are less lonely in a small town. Most people show up with a genuine smile to welcome you into this world and often shed real tears as they say goodbye. Every house is your home with its open doors, warm hearth and inviting kitchens..