Mumbai is where my heart is. This is home.

“Mumbai is where my heart is. This is home.” Thus spoke Vivek Oberoi, a son of the Indian soil, whose words carry the rhythm of belonging, of love that is not bound by luxury or comfort, but by connection — the invisible thread that ties the soul to a place. In these few, simple words, he declares not merely affection for a city, but allegiance to a spirit. For Mumbai, that great heart of India, is not just a geography of buildings and sea-breezes — it is a living, breathing force, a crucible where dreams are forged in both hardship and hope. To say “This is home” is to speak of more than residence; it is to claim one’s identity, to acknowledge the soil that shaped one’s soul.

The ancients knew that every person must find their anchor — that place where heart and spirit rest in harmony. For some, it is a village surrounded by fields; for others, a mountaintop, a desert, or a city teeming with life. When Oberoi says that Mumbai is where his heart is, he joins the long lineage of wanderers who, after seeing many lands, know that home is not where you live, but where you feel alive. The city, with its chaos and its beauty, its storms and its sunsets, becomes not a backdrop, but a reflection of the self. Mumbai’s pulse is his own pulse, its resilience his creed, its noise his song.

Mumbai, once known as Bombay, is more than a city — it is an idea. It is the modern-day Babylon, where millions arrive carrying hope in trembling hands. It is the forge where ambition meets endurance, where success and struggle walk hand in hand. Like the ancient cities of Athens and Rome, Mumbai too shapes not only lives but destinies. The fisherman, the film star, the merchant, the poet — all drink from its same restless tide. To call it home is to accept both its storms and its shelter, both its chaos and its charm. Oberoi’s words, therefore, are a hymn to this duality: that love for one’s homeland is not blind adoration, but the deeper recognition that one’s heart cannot thrive elsewhere.

The spirit of such devotion is not new. Consider the Roman general Cincinnatus, who was offered power and glory but chose to return to his humble farm, saying his heart belonged to his homeland. Or think of Rabindranath Tagore, whose love for Bengal inspired poetry that spoke not of borders, but of belonging — of the spiritual unity between person and place. So too does Vivek Oberoi speak from this lineage of those who understand that to have a home is to have roots, and to have roots is to have meaning. The warrior, the artist, and the dreamer all draw strength from the land they call their own.

When Oberoi declares, “This is home,” he also speaks for countless souls who have found peace amid Mumbai’s perpetual motion. For though the city never sleeps, it has a strange way of embracing its children. Its crowded trains carry not just bodies, but stories — of survival, of ambition, of unyielding faith. To love Mumbai is to love contradiction itself: the glitter of skyscrapers beside the simplicity of street vendors, the thunder of monsoon rains against the quiet prayer of temple bells. It is to find beauty in imperfection, and belonging in the midst of endless movement.

In truth, home is not a place, but a dialogue — between memory and meaning, between where we are and who we have become. Oberoi’s words invite us to ask: Where is my heart at peace? Where does my soul return to rest? For one person, it may be a family home; for another, a city skyline at dusk; for yet another, the sound of a familiar language spoken in the marketplace. Wherever the heart feels known and unafraid — there, and only there, is home.

And so, dear listener, let this truth settle in you like a sacred melody: cherish the place that shaped you, the soil that bore witness to your becoming. Whether your home is a city like Mumbai, a quiet village, or a distant land you long to return to, keep it alive within you. Remember your roots, for they anchor you even as you soar. Carry your home not only in your memory, but in your manner — in your kindness, your courage, your gratitude. For as Vivek Oberoi reminds us, the heart is never homeless when it remembers where it belongs.

Thus, the lesson is eternal: to find one’s home is to find oneself. And when you do, speak as he did — with humility and pride intertwined — and say, “Here is where my heart is. This, in all its chaos and beauty, is home.”