670 kms away

Sitting 670 kms away from a place I called ‘home’ for 3 years, what should I be feeling? Three years ago, on a lazy May morning I saw Bangalore with my family, if it was ‘The Great American dream’ for many Willy Lowmans it was ‘The Great Bangalore dream’ for me. I like to think that the place awaited me. It did! I was sceptical, had uncertainties but I adapted and I became another adopted child of my Garden City!  My independence, hostel, college, strange meetings, Brigade road, Cubbon Park everything has become a memory. Looking back at it, I miss everything terribly but I know in the secret corners of my heart that someday I’ll go back to revisit the lanes, to recollect some memories and to take a rebirth.

I can finally answer Hannah’s question which she kept asking to irritate us “ Aduta varsham/masam/ divsam eeh smayam nammal entu cheyuvayerikum”  Well, I’m home watching TV, painting bottles, eating home food and playing on my laptop but I want to ask you something today “ What were we doing 1 year/ 1 month/ 1 day back?”. I hated college for my first few days but when I found the right company I don’t know I started loving it all the more. Hostel being the best part of my Bangalore days gifted me my most loved memories, pictures and friendships-  eating the same old sambar and rice, fighting for charging points and passes, hosting parties and programmes with catfights and disasters, everything is a memory today. I remember Dada telling me that student life is the best part of one’s life and I think I realize it today. Sitting at home, unaccompanied and distressed listening to some strange bird chirping at my back all I can see is one insecure future right in front of me.

What was Bangalore all about? There was an instant connection I sensed with the place, the thrill of finding your kind of people, your exact likes and your real predispositions coming out when you are in a comfort zone of yours. There was a part of me who wanted to wander, eat and read. Bangalore gave me the strength to take secluded walks, eat unaccompanied in a restaurant, talk to random strangers and develop the outlandish thoughts in me. Now I know what I want from life, I can see myself in my 1BHK flat in a remote Bangalore urban space sipping tea from my balcony and talking to Mino over phone about ‘city creeping’, I can see myself in a kitchen among some abnormal cooking recipes watching some pre historic movie- Latin or Korean or Spanish. A life full of black matt pencils, fabric paints, poetry and classics. There is this Me in a drawn-out sweater among some unfinished sketches and flash fictions awaiting to be published. That’s what I want in my’ yet to come days’.

But I feel vulnerable because - No more Achebes, personality disorders and urban planning! No more running around with attendance sheets, filling credits and photo copying notes! No more Chat Wala, Fenny’s and Momo Hut! No more Diwakar, hostel food and filled charging points! No more Hemmingway code hero, Billy Biswas , Godot and ME! Things I loved the most and today eyeing back at it as a memory makes me more sceptical. Is there something stable in life? I need something like that. Something which can be ‘dated forever’!

PS: Sheba, I already started missing our strangest wanderings and your childish malayalam, Munni, I miss our road trips and discussions on ‘city creeping’,  tuition classes and clicking pictures in your room with make ups on, Hannah, I miss your Bible classes, your chandrayan missions and laughs, Jenu I miss our room, your new kurtis and your epic cow pose, Kunju I miss your stupidities, love stories and gossips, Hiya Roy I miss sitting at your room hatching eggs and talking about everything possible under the sun, Pathange and Mami I miss our memorable lunches, sleeping in those boring OE classes and ‘happy hours’. Why can’t we just go back and do everything again? Maybe someday we will...