It’s That Time of the Year Again

It’s that time of the year again.

It’s December. It’s Christmas. It’s the New Year.

The other day I heard someone saying that December is a mood. Sure, it is. It’s a mood which constantly makes me feel that everyone in the world is much happier than I would ever be. It’s a mood where people around me are generally planning vacations and I would still be in the middle of my everyday chores. Assignments, college, laundry, job etc. etc.

English films and various other pop culture references have made new years and Christmas a thing for most of us. People often come up to me and ask about my new year plans and I don’t really know what to say. While growing up, I spent my new year’s eve watching random award shows on TV with my brother while everyone at home slept at their usual time.

After joining college, New Year’s Eve for everyone else was all about drinking and forgetting all the worries. But neither I drink, nor do I forget my worries. So while everyone will be giggling and dancing their way to a new year, I will be sitting in a corner thinking that how are they doing this. How are they so happy and I am not.

Now that it’s that time of the year again, I am already anxious about people calling me a bore. People asking me to come to some random party to chill and getting disappointed to hear a ‘no’.

But the thing is that I like quiet. I would prefer going to sleep at eleven than partying all night. I would prefer having dinner with my loved ones than going to a party full of acquaintances and socializing.

I would any day prefer new years to be a normal day where there isn’t so much pressure to be happy.

The Train, Yet Again

Thirty hours is a lot of time to be spent on the train, at least for me. 

My favourite berth is side-lower for it allows me to have minimal interaction with other people. The people occupying lower, middle and upper berth mostly indulge in discussions related to weather or food, sometimes politics too. Side berth gives me the option to just sit back and enjoy the conversation, if it's interesting, or turn around and pretend to be asleep, in case I am bored. Rarely people turn to the person sitting on the side berth to talk unless the person who is supposed to be on the side-upper berth is actually sitting in front of you and is looking at you with a wide smile.

Last vacation, once again, I took a train from Bombay, Lokmanya Tilak Terminal, to home. I got the tickets done early and hence I was relieved to be on the side-lower berth. There was no one on the side-upper berth and so I conveniently took two pillows, plugged in my earphones, and started watching one of the gazillion things that I had downloaded on my phone for this long journey. After a couple of hours of watching and napping, I woke up to this lady sitting in front of me wearing a wide smile. I tried to smile too and sheepishly returned her pillow.

I got up, sat and folded my legs to give her enough space to sit. She smiled again and opened the curtains. The glass of the window of a third-AC compartment is like a sepia-toned blurred wallpaper. You can’t clearly see, but you still like what you see. After a few minutes, she asked me where I was coming from. I got confused if she wanted to know the station that I boarded the train from or about my hometown. So, I told her both. After half an hour of conversation and her showing me pictures of her kids, she offered me a small pack of Bourbon and water. I refused to take the biscuits even though Bourbon is my favourite. I don’t like eating much on the train, especially on a thirty-hours journey. I eagerly took the water though. I had finished my water bottle a while ago and had been waiting for a vendor. No one showed up though; they are not very frequent in AC compartments.

She got down after a couple of hours. I envied her for my destination was still quite afar. After her, I saw a lot of people coming and going while I was still curled up inside the sheets. I have taken uncountable train rides to home. Faizabad, my home, doesn’t have an airport. The nearest one is Lucknow though, which is used in case of urgencies and emergencies. Earlier I used to take an overnight train from Delhi to Faizabad. It used to be the best. I would sit at around seven in the evening, eat the burger that I got packed from the station MacDonalds and sleep, only to wake up to the hustle-bustle of Faizabad station. My father would be trying to see through the window glass and I would wave at him only to realize that he can’t see me. Delhi to Faizabad is only twelve hours. Twelve hours in a train is warm and cosy and even better if you decide to watch a film like Highway, which I used to do quite often.

The days of loving the train rides have become a thing of past since I have shifted to Mumbai. Now it’s more about convenience and feasibility. This time I was very eager to get down from the train, so as soon as I overheard someone saying that Faizabad is just an hour away I started taking out my bags. I also checked the sheets and the pillow and the entire berth to be honest. I did not want to forget my earphones or charger in a hurry. I came out and stood at the gate. The train went right past my father and then stopped a few seconds later. I saw him following the train and me. As soon as I got down, he kissed my forehead and I touched his feet and then gave him an awkward hug.

I reached home and saw my grandmother standing at the gate waiting for me. After meeting her, I walked straight into the kitchen only to find my mother preparing my favourite breakfast. Later in the day, I was telling my brother, who is still in school, about the train journey and the lady I met. He instantly said, “But don’t you know that we shouldn’t take food from strangers. What if she stole your stuff or did something bad?” I had no answers so I just apologized and promised to be more careful next time.

Not Knowing Is Okay

This article was supposed to start with the names of a few famous people who have changed their career multiple times or very late in life and have still managed to make it to the top. So I did a google search and found a lot many of them. But you can find that list yourself right? Also, when I was going through the list, I realized that I don’t need these names to make my point. Even if the list had no names I would still believe that shaming people who are not sure about their lives is quite hypocritical. Because, really, who is sure? What we want in life at a particular moment is mostly about what we feel at that point in time. And voila, feelings change!

In a world where even the waiter expects you to choose from ten different kinds of coffee, there is an incessant pressure to always know what you want. Most of us have gotten used to it. We have gotten so used to it that we expect everyone around us to be sure all the time. In pursuit of stability and success, one is expected to choose a path and then stick to it, no matter what. In a society that fancies commitment and glorifies it to the extent that women are asked to stick to their spouses’ even when the marriage is not working out, it is difficult to admit that what you chose, maybe, five years ago is not what you want to choose today.

There are so many examples in our everyday lives where people are shamed by their family and friends when they decide to change a path. It’s not difficult to find that 43-year old who wants to leave his job and start a business or a 22-year old engineering graduate who wants to pursue arts or a 50-year old who want to get rid of a toxic marriage or a 17-year old who doesn’t know what to do in life. These people are all around us. Some of them have made the decision and have gotten past all the discouragement and flak but some are still on this side struggling to make their way through.

   

Denial is easy. Not admitting that you made a wrong choice or just that you made a choice that worked for you then but is not working now is easy while admitting it is not. It takes an immense amount of courage to admit to yourself and to others that you want to change the course of your life.  The law of inertia, given by Sir Issac Newton, states that it is the tendency of an object to resist a change in motion. That is, an object at rest will stay at rest or an object in motion will stay in motion, unless it is acted on by an external force. If one looks closely this is as true for human beings as it is for an object. It’s easier to stay in a toxic marriage than to call it out; it’s easier to continue that 9 to 5 job than to leave it for a venture that you want to start on your own. Even when the destination is changed in your head, it’s easier to go with the flow than to stop and turn.

Instead of calling these people courageous and appreciating them to be able to choose better for themselves, we, as a society, shame them. We call them unstable and indecisive and make them feel guilty about taking too many turns. We discourage them by saying that not sticking by to your previous decision means running away. We, as a society, make them believe that their brave choice is an act of cowardice. And we all do it, without realizing, in our everyday lives.

Not knowing is okay. Making a change does not always mean that one is incapable of commitment. Terri Trespicio in her Ted talk “Stop searching for your passion” says that the idea that one has to know what one is supposed to do is dangerously limiting. She says that “she is leery of passion for a few reasons. One of them is that passion is not a plan, it’s a feeling and feelings change. You can be passionate about a person one day, a job, and then not passionate the next. We know this and yet we continue to use passion as the yardstick to judge everything by.”

So, the next time when someone comes to tell you that their childhood dream is not something that they want to pursue anymore, try and not judge them immediately. Try and not tell them that they are fickle-minded and that they need to be certain about their choices. Try and hear them out maybe?

ईस्ट-वेस्ट

कुर्ला उतारना है क्या?
नहीं।
कुर्ला उतरेगी क्या?
नहीं तो।
पीछे जाओ फिर...
ओह ठीक है।

कुर्ला आया और मैंने दरवाज़े के किनारे वाले खंबे के पास वाली जगह लेली। सीट ना मिले तो खड़े रहने के लिए सबसे अच्छी जगह होती है वो। बाहर आसमान दिखता है। किसी को कविता या साहित्य में दिलचस्पी ना भी हो तो भी वहां खड़े होकर वो तमाम कविताएं और कहानियां याद आने लगती है जो बरसों पहले आपने पढ़ी या सुनी थी।

इतने दिनों के बाद आसमान नीला था आज। बिलकुल साफ, ऐसा लग ही नहीं रहा था कि पिछली रात बारिश हुई है। वडाला उतर कर ट्रेन बदलनी थी मुझे, पर जिस गेट से उतरना था, मैं उसके ठीक उल्टी तरफ खड़ी थी। बड़ी मुश्किल से धीरे धीरे भीड़ के बीच से निकल कर इस तरफ आयी।

वडाला से सांता क्रूज जाने वाली ट्रेन में चढ़ना इतना मुश्किल नहीं था। भीड़ कम थी। सीट भी मिल गई। इस ट्रेन का डिब्बा भी पिछली वाली ट्रेन से बहुत अलग था। लोग भी अलग ही थे। सब एक जैसे थे। जैसे एक ही जगह से आएं हो और एक ही जगह को जा रहे हो।

बांद्रा स्टेशन पर काफी लोग उतर गए। ट्रेन और भी खाली हो गई। अगले से अगला स्टेशन मेरा था। फोन निकालकर घर का पता एक बार दोबारा देखा।

स्टेशन पर उतरी तो ईस्ट-वेस्ट पता करने की जद्दोजहद फिर से चालू हो गई। और हर बार की तरह इस बार भी स्टेशन से बाहर निकली तो ऑटो वाले भैया ने बताया कि मै गलत तरफ से बाहर आ गई।

The Ephemerality of Friendship

Memories die of old age too. They become old and blur and then they are lost, in an abyss. But then on a gloomy rainy day, when you wake up from your afternoon nap, a part of it sweeps its way back. You feel lost. You don’t know what to do with it. It makes you feel a little too much, and sometimes too old too. 

I was reminded of my kindergarten friend today. I don’t remember a lot about her or our times together. Her name used to start with ‘J’. I don’t remember how we became friends or how did we drift apart. But I remember her telephone number; it used to end with triple eight.  In those days, we used to have landlines. I remember her father picked me up from school, once, when papa was not in town. One day, I started crying in front of the school and refused to go inside because someone told me that she is sick, and won’t be coming today. These random reminders overwhelm me for the ephemerality of friendship is more visible to me, today, than it ever was.

Everyone says that you meet a lot of ‘temporary’ people in your twenties. I am not sure, though, if ‘temporary’ is the right word to describe these relationships. I miss an old friend. Some friends drift apart because they move to different cities and find new people and make new homes.  But this friend is not one of them. We chose to stop talking to each other. We made a choice to not be in each other’s lives for it seemed like the best option. I still miss her sometimes. And when I do, I go back and read the letters and postcards that we sent to each other in good times and also the emails that we shared in the times that weren’t that great.

I am not a hoarder, in fact, the opposite of it. I delete old WhatsApp chats just so that I can forget whatever good or bad happened in the past. But I still have her letters and emails. The weird thing about memories is that even the good ones make you sad because they are all in the past, and no matter how much you want you can’t go back to them.  There was a lump in my throat while I was scrolling through the pictures in my gallery. When I was living these moments, I thought they are going to last for forever. We made plans of attending each other’s wedding and now we don’t even call to ask each other’s well being

. 

These friends come into our lives and for a brief period of time, a few months or years, become a part of us and we become a part of them. We pick on each other’s words and habits and it all happens just very organically, without any effort. We miss them even if we don’t want to be with them anymore. By the time they leave, we become different people with the experiences that change us for forever.

There is nothing temporary about these friendships. They stay with you even after the people leave.

The Rant

The blank paper staring at me

is asking me to let it out

this paper has been 

a generous friend

the only generous friend

more so in my anxious and jumpy days

it never gets tired of the rant

the rant that mostly consists of past

of people who meant the world to me

at some point in time

but are no longer around

the rant where I curse myself

for letting these people in

and showing them the closets

and crevices of my heart

the rant in which I am restless

that these people are still out there

with all my secrets 

where I regret sharing 

everything that should have 

belonged only to me

the rant where I am disappointed in me

for falling in the trap

not once but twice

for falling for the facade 

for falling for something that 

was never real

the rant that laments about

choosing them and their facade

over my own being

I keep on pouring

and this paper, my most generous friend

keeps on soaking it all in

The world is going to end?

Like people talk to themselves

in the mirror

I found myself talking aloud today

saying that it's fine

That this has happened to you before

Even then there was nothing to look forward to

Even then you kept looking for a silver lining

but couldn't really find one

yes, it did happen to you before,

where you felt like

the world is going to end

But nothing actually ended

you kept walking

and it kept getting better

I kept telling myself that

the pain in your chest will subside

that there will come a day

when you will look back to this moment

and smile

Smile because before it ended

it happened, and you lived it

you lived every bit of it

Bombay

I woke up today and my house was a mess. Aunty needed to cook rajma and there were no onions. Shreya was getting late for work. She was waiting for the upma to get cooked. I was strolling here and there unmindful of the time. I was getting late too. And hence I literally had to run to the stop to catch my bus. Every day I stand at the bus stop staring at the road and wait for the bus, 521 or 121. You never know when exactly will the bus come and hence it's always relieving to see it coming. There are protocols here too. There are two gates on the bus, one in the front and one at the back. You always enter the bus from the back gate. I didn't know this on my first day and hence entered the bus from the front gate causing a hassle. I wonder if someone noticed and laughed at me.

It's going to be a month now, I still don't know if I am settled into this routine though. The faces have all become familiar. They all come, put their earphones on, tilt their heads towards a side and sleep. In my not so good days, it feels like all of them are dead. Those are the days of existential questions too when life seems so monotonous that I wonder if all of us have worked our asses off to achieve this monotony. Some people call it routine; they like it. I don't really know if I am one of them.

I entered the bus and ran towards the empty seat. I don't get a seat every day so this might be the biggest achievement of my day. Conductor uncle was happy today. We shared a laugh when I finally took the station name right. Everyone on the bus knows him. I hear him chatting with people. They talk in Marathi though, so I don't really understand. I don't remember directions easily but it has been long enough to know that every day this bus passes through Chembur, Sion, Dadar and then Worli. I get down at Worli. Somewhere in between Matunga also comes. I guess. Dadar has the prettiest homes. Many of them are now covered in yellow flowers celebrating the arrival of Spring. It took me very long to notice all of this for in the initial days my eyes used to be glued to the screen. I hope and wish that I did not miss out on a lot.

The guy in front of me was reading Orwell's 1984. I was so tempted to talk to him. What would I have talked about though? 1984 was scary but these times in real are scarier. We could have talked about that. Anyway, I didn't have the courage to initiate a conversation. He got down at NC Kelkar Road, Dadar. It's silly of me to note down the details, but I feel wiser when I remember the name of the places. On my way, every day, I see a church and the Siddhivinayak temple too.

This is the first time in my 24-years of life when I am travelling every day for work. I leave home at eight in the morning and then come back at eight in the evening. In the evening, the bus takes longer because of traffic. I have never had this much time to just be, to watch people, to imagine having conversations with them. A year ago, I used to complain about how I have never travelled on a bus. A year ago, I was dying to come to Bombay and experience the life that I have grown up watching in a million of Hindi films. I am not going to romanticise the struggle. It's hard and there are no two ways about it. But there are still ways to make it better. Watching the spring flowers bloom in Dadar is much better than scrolling through Netflix and getting anxious and restless about what to watch. There is no comparison actually.

Had it not been for this, I would have never known Bombay the way I do now. I would have never known that from Worli, I can take a direct bus to Sassanian and then go to Marine Drive. I would have never known that Haji Ali is also nearby from here. It all might be silly but it feels so good to know these places now. To know Dadar and Worli. It feels blissful to navigate through the city on my own. I feel wiser.

People say that Bombay grows on you. I think it does. Slowly and steadily, but it does.