Native Place

Mark Tully in Rooting for Home from the series My Native Placein Outlook:
"But from my earliest childhood, although I was living in Calcutta, I was left under no illusions about where I ought to locate my native place. I was consistently reminded by my European nanny that I was a little English boy. She had been employed to ensure I didn’t come under the influence of "the servants".
.....
But when I returned to India at the age of 30, more by chance than by intention, I soon discovered that my native place was in doubt. India came back from my subconscious with a bang. The very first day I returned, after being away for 20 of the most influential years of my life, I had a startling experience. When I smelt the smoke from malis cooking their lunch in the garden of my Delhi hotel, the whole of my childhood charged through my mind like a train rushing through a station at full speed. From that day I felt, like Hardy and Nehru, that my native place, the place I was born, was at least as important as any place I might have lived thereafter."
For me, it is also the sounds of Telugu which bring a rush of such memories.