Belonging is such a slippery notion

Amsterdam: From Lisbon, we bought a large pineapple-shaped stone vase (see below). When I sit on the couch at home in Amsterdam, I often find my gaze pulled in its direction, the feeling of its rough surface on my fingertips.

We had just finished dinner in the Portuguese capital, copious amounts of Vinho Verde with a hint of bubbles leaving us in a frivolous mood. Crossing through the heart of the old town, we spotted it in a shop window sitting on a plump antique buffet made of teak wood. It looked like it belonged in a heritage mansion in Goa that had witnessed multiple generations of Portuguese Goans succumb to tropical delirium.

Before we realised, the 'pineapple' was in our possession. It was a strange company to keep while navigating airport security, and I was protective of it like a newborn baby, even as its weight decidedly exceeded that.

But it's what remains of trips the longest - the memories that linger, not the stuff one acquires along the way.

Camping out at Figueiredo House in Goa - a sprawling mansion built in 1590 pre-dating the Taj Mahal by decades - every morning I would venture out at dawn, the heat unforgiving during the day. Exiting through the front door, I would leave a befuddled doorman behind - I, the 'firang' out on his walk, sweat coating my back - small churches hiding in dense foliage, dogs out on a prowl.

Around the corner, an ageing couple would invite me in for morning tea, a cold drink perhaps, convinced I had lost my mind, their mansion crumbling around them, empty rooms where furniture had once stood proudly. Maybe this is where the buffet we saw in Lisbon had once belonged?

Such a slippery notion, this belonging. Where does anything or anyone - or me, for that matter - belong? Staying at Banda Neira, a tiny Indonesian island in the Maluku archipelago, my room opened to a veranda overlooking the mercurial volcano Gunung Api (pic). For days at breakfast, I had spotted a woman sitting in a corner cradling what I had assumed to be a baby. Out on a mission to wrap my tastebuds around the tanginess of nutmeg-peel pulped into a thick jam to spread on toast, her presence barely registered.

Grounded nutmeg is something my mother would spread over cauliflower, the vegetable my father grew all his life, a regular item on the menu. If not tulips, the plant would cover the fields outside my bedroom window.

Throughout Neira, the sound of hammering could be heard. Women's work, to release the nutmeg from the hard shell encasing it. I wanted one of these hammers. The way I once ventured out to buy a wasabi-grater made of shark skin in Japan, having no need for it.

The woman in the corner seemed to realise something about me, nudging me to come over and see what she was holding. The cloth I had assumed to hide a sick baby turned out to be a small cannon, about half the length of my arm. It had been decorated with a VOC logo, indicating it had once belonged to somebody in the employ of Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie - Dutch East India Company, its bloody legacy on the islands a nauseating reminder of how murderous and exploitative colonial days had been.

The woman, from the Kei Islands, was keen to sell me the cannon to pay for festivities that would mark the end of Ramzan. I would be doing her a favour, the hotel-owner assured me.

At the airport, the cannon showed up on the scanner. But upon closer inspection, it turned out not to pose any danger. I haven't got it authenticated.

The Lisbon 'pineapple,' on the other hand, turned out to be not old at all. It wasn't even Portuguese, the paperwork indicated Thai. Tipped off by a harbour master, it had been part of a consignment that hadn't been picked up. The antique dealer had smelled a bargain.

Not too far from the pineapple vase, the cannon now sits next to a bronze coconut from Cochin and a statue of a dodo by a Dutch artist, each with its unique journey waiting to be told.