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Willis Tower honed into view, its dual spires defining the limit of the Chicago skyline, as our plane made its final descent into O’Hare. Slowly, more buildings felt familiar and the urge to gaze at their architecture only building. Lake Michigan had been at its absolute best that Saturday morning, glistening under the sun with surprising frozen fractals all around. I caught a glimpse of rowhomes covered in a thin layer of snow, which certainly appealed to my tropical mind. The just-risen sun of 7 am Central Time provided the best backdrop to the city I hope to call home in the future.

I burst into tears, copping concerned and some indifferent looks from my fellow passengers. Instantly I thought it was my body chastising me for watching Tom Cruise fly by a tower for the millionth time instead of the desperate sleep I needed – nevertheless, it felt quite different. It felt surreal. As we drifted down through the smoke of an industrial factory, I was able to steal a second for myself away from the view and reflect on why I was feeling this way.

Moving my whole life to a new country hadn’t been as easy as I had thought it to be. My predictions were heavily based on my visit in 2016 – yes, a 13-year-old’s perceptions of the coolness of an outlet mall and its Lego store had taken the driving seat in picturing my future. It felt unreal having to pack my life into 2 suitcases under 23kgs, give up rasam chawal, and leave Bombay behind. Was it really worth it? While that question has procured countless blanks, at that moment flying over the Windy City, I think I had my answer.

Yes.

The people here have made it worth it. It was weird how fast it came to mind given how many times I had come up short. To summarize what the first few weeks of college may be like for some people: You’re forced together into an absolutely new environment with people you don’t know, this unspoken pressure to make the right decisions in finding the best people to share your life with. In most cases, you enter a sweaty common room, the capacity of which has been exceeded two-fold already. After a night oversaturated with information about hometowns and majors, you hope to have gained someone you can sustain a conversation with more than a head nod and a smile at the cafeteria. It seems daunting. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to go looking for these people – they came to me, and established ‘home’.

I feel particularly proud of this characterization, simply because of the nature of my two worlds. In the first case, it’s the people technically forced to live with me – my hallmates! Through the power of random assignment, I seem to have lucked out and found the people that have probably defined my college experience so far. Each Saturday night is different with them – from building blanket forts to dissecting the history of India (I lost them at 1922, which is 322 more years than I thought I would talk about), I feel us barreling towards calculating the probability of us ending up here together. It’s a group I enjoy walking to frat parties with, and one that gives me dirty looks when I express my not-so-subtle excitement when we inevitably get turned down at the door. But more than the fun, it’s a group that takes care of each other, steals honey and other tea-related items from the cafeteria when we’re sick, and reacts appropriately to gossip.

The other taste of home is actually quite literal – having people from my hometown and country here in Baltimore. Whether it’s the superpower of making sure I’m not the only one that takes my shoes off when we enter a room or the actual sense of community I feel when they understand my ‘arre yaars’, they’ve made life easier in innumerable ways. To my seniors from high school who seem to have played a bigger role in deciding between colleges than the numerous columns on the excel sheet, or the first-years who help justify my decision to be here, I thank you for the company.

On a more playful note, and reaffirming my obsession with cities, Chicago (although 1200 km away) feels like home. To the chagrin of returning readers, yes, it’s the architecture of the city that captivated me. The Spanish colonial and neo-Gothic buildings of Michigan Avenue, or the plentiful Art-Deco commerce buildings dotting the riverside will always yield something new for me, despite being hundreds of years old. The Art of Institute of Chicago feels like a dream come true, a quiet haven for people who spend hours on the same gallery floor. It has family, friends, and hopeful novel adventures. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way – just consult the playlist of music I made of songs about the city, by some of the most prominent artists of the time.  

Surprisingly, despite never really knowing the city before actually falling in love with it, I had actually been introduced to it in 2010, with the first instance of playing Midtown Madness on the one laptop we had at home that was nearly as thick as the table. An open-world racing game developed in the late 90s, it was set in a Chicago that I could see when we drove around in the fall of 2022. With its sharp right-handers (that needed a player to finesse the brake to cut through) and unbelievable bridges (that provided the best ramps to fly), I felt at home from the start.

To the next four years, or maybe longer, I say – bring it on. I can throw an American football (it will take me a while to call it just football), know when to jaywalk (always), have an amazing community, and a dream. It will only get better.